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BOX OFFICE Italy

Good news: First semester up 16%

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Just over €301m at the box office, for approximately 60m admissions. The Italian film market recorded a 16.11% increase with respect to the same period in 2005 (although -3.75% when compared with 2004). In the month of June alone, the increase was 30%.

The good news comes from the data supplied yesterday in Sorrento by film associations ANEC, ANEM, UNIDIM, ANICA and AGIS at the Professional Screenings Days. It was a breath of fresh air for Italian cinema, after a negative 2005.

Italian films represent 23.20% of the market (in 2005, that quota was 18.81% and in 2004, 16.22%), whereas US films make up 57.54%. In fact, the top grossing film of the season is The Da Vinci Code (Sony), with €27.5m, followed by Italian title My Best Enemy (Filmauro) and Ice Age: The Meltdown (Fox), both at €18.4m. The second best grossing domestic film was Notte prima degli esami (Night Before the Exams) (01 Distribution), with €12.1m in the first half of the year.

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For Carlo Bernaschi, president of exhibitors association ANEM, "The positive market data is tied to the performance of Italian films. We need a strong Italian production industry and to be able to work 12 months per year".

Everyone agrees upon extending the season. "We endured the impact of the World Cup", explains Paolo Protti, president of exhibitors association ANEC. "Given June’s figures, perhaps we could have risked a little more in the summer. If we want to reach European levels, of countries such as France and Germany, we have to concentrate more on our own films".

Paolo Ferrari, president of ANICA (the Italian Association of Cinematographic Audiovisual and Multimedia Industries), explains: "More than an extension of the season, we should consider extending a film’s theatrical run. In Italy, films are taken down 20-25% more quickly than in other markets, while box office earnings and averages are still good". (See our article on France).

Today, the associations will meet with Minister of Culture Francesco Rutelli to ask for a relaunching of the film industry, without forgetting the problem of piracy, which remains unresolved.

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(Translated from Italian)

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