06/10/2005

National productions continue to lead the Czech box-office, with two films taking the top spots for the week ending October 5. With more to come and in what is generally considered to be a “poor” Hollywood year, the domination of the box-office by “home-made” productions is expected to continue.

Petr Vachler’s feature Doblba!, released September 29, went straight to number one, taking more than 120,000 euro only during its first release week. With a massive – by Czech standards – 27,212 tickets only during the weekend, it led over another Czech film, Bohdan Slama’s Something Like Happiness [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bohdan Slama
interview: Pavel Strnad
film profile] (“Stesti”), this year’s Golden Shell winner at San Sebastian.
Slama’s film, already in its third week, has fallen from first to second place but it is still doing well, having taken almost 300,000 euro from the box-office.

“Getting top spot in a situation where we had competition from such films such as [Ron Howard’s] Cinderella Man and [Roman Polanski’s] Oliver Twist and while there is a general trend of less people going to the theatres, [first place] is even more sweet that it really is” said Vachler. While Polanski’s Prague-shot Oliver Twist could just about make it to the box-office top-10 this past week, Cinderella Man is among seven US productions who followed on the heels of Vachler and Slama but at a considerable distance.

Doblba!, a black comedy about three brothers who are suddenly presented with a challenge of a lifetime because of an unexpected inheritance, is Vachler’s first feature. The man who is better known for his successful TV productions and as the personality behind the annual Czech Lions awards (the Czech equivalent to the Oscars) produced the film in association with Czech TV and also co-wrote the script. His distributor is BontonFilm, the company also behind Something Like Happiness.