14/02/2006

The last months of 2005, which saw a general increase in cinema-going, were not enough to improve the fortunes of a year characterized by a negative trend. All throughout Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, audience numbers categorically decreased. On average, the 15 countries of Western Europe, whose results are already available, dropped 11%, losing approximately 100m admissions, from 925m to 824m. The ten territories of East and Central Europe and the Mediterranean that made their data public decreased from 101m to 82m admissions, dropping 19%, with percentages above 20% recorded in the Czech Republic (-21%), Slovakia (-24%), Rumania (-29%) and Poland (-30%).

MEDIA Salles – which is part of the EU’s MEDIA Programme and is supported by the Italian government –put forth this data Monday in Berlin, at the presentation of the final edition of their 2005 European Cinema Yearbook. 2004 was an exceptional year, during which very important growths were recorded. Consequently, we can reconsider 2005, differentiating those markets that did maintain a part of those increased admissions recorded between 2003 and 2004 and those which lost them entirely. To the second group belong the two grouped territories that suffered a 19% decrease, the most serious recorded in Western Europe Austria and Germany, the latter which saw a drop of almost 30m admissions with respect to 2004, and reached its lowest levels since 1995.

Another one Western Europe’s large markets, Spain, finds itself in a similar situation, albeit with a less severe decrease, and closed the year at -14%, leaving 20m admissions behind. Smaller territories with smaller industries followed the same trend: Luxemburg (-15%), Switzerland (-12%), Finland (-12%), Sweden (-12%), Netherlands (-11%), Portugal (-10%), Norway (-6%), Ireland (-5%) and the UK (-4%). Those who best weathered the drop and maintained figures greater than those from 2003 were Denmark (-3%), Italy (-9%) and France (-10%).

Various hypotheses were offered in an attempt to explain the negative results of 2005. Some look at long-term phenomena external to film offerings, in the strictest sense of the word, such as the changes in leisure time activities, the increase in alternative channels of film distribution (e.g., DVDs and their shortened “distribution windows") or pirating. Others insist on the poorer quality of the films released in 2005, which were less capable – in particular, US films – of drawing large audiences to cinemas. John Fithian, president of NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners), is among the latter group and, commenting on the poor year the US had (although it closed at -8,5%, 2005 is nevertheless considered to be one of the best years of the last decade), pointed out that cinema-going trends are of an innately cyclical nature.

However, the very fact that a small group of internationally appealing films from the last fourth months – accompanied, in the more fortunate countries, by a number of quality or popular films – was able to lure millions of filmgoers back to cinemas seems to prove the latter hypothesis. And also give hope for the future.

(Translated from Italian)