01/09/2005

Thanks to a wide choice and number of films on offer, Danish films have registered their highest admission figures in over 20 years during the first half of 2005, with 1.9m tickets sold representing a 33% market share according to Statistics Denmark.

17 Danish films were released during that period, the highest total ever for any first half year. In comparison last year, only seven new Danish films were released at that time, selling 0.9m tickets.
Among the top 10 films of the first half of 2005, four local titles took the second, third, fifth and eighth position of the domestic box office. At number 2 after Star Wars, Episode 3 is Tomas Villum Jensen’s bitter sweet comedy The Sun King (Solkongen) produced by Thura Film with 346,575 admissions since last February. The modern fairy tale co-written by Villum Jensen with Anders Thomas Jensen stars one of Denmark’s most popular actor Nikolaj Lie Kass.
At number 3 with 337,559 admissions is the local comedy Adam’s Apples [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anders Thomas Jensen
interview: Mads Mikkelsen
interview: Tivi Magnusson
film profile] signed again by the highly successful Anders Thomas Jensen and produced by M & M Productions. A children’s film Oskar & Josefin by Carsten Myllerup also scored highly at no5 with 247,231 admissions, while Angels In Fast Motion (Nordkraft), the drama directed by Ole Christian Madsen took the no8 position with over 193,000 admissions, in front of US blockbusters The Robot and Meet The Fockers.
The only non-Danish and non-US film at the Top ten during that period was the German Der Untergang (Downfall), with 318,979 admissions.
Cinema-going as a whole declined only slightly during the first half of 2005 with a 5% drop, compared to Germany (-11%), France (-15%) or Italy (-19%).

The second half of 2005 looks very promising again for Danish films, starting with Per Fly’s Manslaughter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Drabet) that opened very strongly last weekend through Nordisk Film. Carried by raving reviews, the film was No1 at the local chart with 38,702 admissions from 61 cinemas.
Eight other Danish films in widely different genres will open over the next upcoming months, including Nicolas Winding Refn’s action thriller I’m The Angel of Death-Pusher 3 opening tomorrow through Nordisk Film, Christoffer Boe’s Allegro opening on September 30 through SF Film, and Jannik Johansen’s Murk to be released by Nordisk on October 10.