29/08/2005

The FFA has just published admission figures for the first half of 2005. The public's interest may have waned, but the crisis is not structural and German cinema itself achieved a greater market share than last year.
In terms of admissions, these first six months were not very positive: 60.3 million tickets only were sold (72.3M last year), whereas for the same period in 2001 and 2002 nearly 80 million admissions were registered. These poor results are mainly due to the fact that the public ignored big American productions to a greater degree than usual, a phenomenon noticeable all over in Europe. Last year, five blockbusters reached over a million spectators in one week-end; this year, only two US movies achieved this. In fact, last year, nine of the top ten films had attracted more than two million people; this year, only three of them reached that mark.
However, the statistics show that the spectator interest varies according to the quality on offer. In March, the results were good, due to three popular films, Hitch, Die wilden Kerle2, and Sophie Scholl – The Last Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Considering how influential American blockbusters are in terms of admissions, they are in fact responsible for the low figures obtained for the period.

The current crisis is certainly not structural and not limited to Germany. German cinema itself is going pretty well and benefits from the public's higher expectations. These local productions represent 19.7% of the market shares (13.2% in 2004), that is, 11.8M spectators (25% more than last year at the same time). The young generation of German directors are successful; while last year, only one film in the German top-ten had sold over a million tickets, this year, five of them are 'millionaires'. Among the very successful films, there are two children's movies (Die wilden Kerle II and Felix - Ein Hase auf Weltreise) and two features which have also restored the popularity of German cinema abroad, Sophie Scholl... and Alles auf Zucker [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

This 'relatively' positive trend for the German film industry should encourage distributors and exhibitors to keep working to provide quality films in good comfortable theatres.

(Translated from French)