28/10/2005

An unusually high number of local productions have popped up in the Dutch box-office charts of October because of the recent Dutch Film Festival (read article) which served as a launching pad for many local productions. The most successful of these is the children’s film Het paard van Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas’s horse) by Mischa Kamp, which has won the best script Golden Calf at the Dutch Film Festival as well as the audience award at the recent Flanders Film Festival in Ghent.

Since its release two weeks ago, Het paard van Sinterklaas has soared to Since its release two weeks ago, Het paard van Sinterklaas has soared to the number two spot of the box-office, with a per-screen average of over € 5,500, the highest of the top twenty. Wallace and Gromit [+see also:
trailer
film profile], who holds the top spot, plays at three times as many theatres for an average of € 2,400. Het paard van Sinterklaas is about a little Chinese girl who has emigrated to the Netherlands and is unfamiliar with the tradition of Saint Nicholas (the Netherlandish version and predecessor of Santa Claus); it has already garnered a Golden Film mention for having sold 100,000 tickets. The good news for distributor Warner Bros is that the film is likely to have some legs as the name day of the Saint is still more than a month away. So far the film, which premiered this Wenesday in Belgium, has accumulated over € 500,000.

The Dutch October box-office also has several other new local entries, including the drama Leef!, which in its four weeks of release has accumulated € 340,000, the youth-oriented football musical Johan, which has earned € 160,000 since its release three weeks ago and the children’s film Knetter from director Martin Koolhoven, which has garnered almost € 90,000 in two weeks. Another film from Koolhoven, the culture clash comedy Het Schnitzelparadijs [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martin Khoolhoven
interview: Mimoun Oaïssa
film profile], is still in the top five of the charts in its 7th week of release and has made almost € 2.2 million to date. The children’s film Zoop in Afrika, based on a popular TV-series, has arrived at the same amount in fifteen weeks and currently holds the 15th spot on the charts.