09/10/2006

Astorias Cinemas, run by arthouse distribution specialist Mattias Nohrborg, has been saved from bankruptcy by rival exhibition chain SF Cinemas, who agreed last Thursday to buy all its regional cinemas. Nine sites will gradually be shut down, apart from cinemas in Uppsala, Lund and Borlänge, now under SF ownership. Astorias for its part will keep its cinemas in the bigger cities of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö.

“I’m really happy with the deal and feel relieved”, said Nohrborg, CEO of Astorias and of distribution and production outfit Triangle Film. “It is adapted to the situation on the Swedish theatre marketplace. At the same time, our agreement with SF Bio helps us out of a very poor and critical financial situation”, he acknowledged.

Earlier last week, the second biggest exhibition circuit in Sweden had to apply for protection from bankruptcy at the Stockholm district court, unable to pay its creditors and reimburse a crippling debt of SEK80m (€8.6m), of which SEK7m (€753,705) was owed to the Swedish Film Institute. However, the company’s financial difficulties had already started to emerge last spring when it stopped paying the 10% duty on cinema tickets to the SFI.

Nevertheless, the happy days when the two arthouse distributors Triangle Film and Atlantic and production company S/S Fladen had bought Sandrew Metronome's chain of 22 cinemas/89 screens in 15 Swedish cities, and then renamed it Astorias were not that far away. “A year and a half ago, I thought that there was room on the marketplace for two nationwide cinema chains”, said Norhborg. “But I simply have to admit that I was partly wrong. This is not possible in most places outside the major cities, and it has been hard to realize that we now have to close down the loss-making part of the chain in the countryside".

Norhborg, a keen buyer of European films for many decades, also partly blamed the other major distributors for not feeding Astorias with box office hits from May to August, giving SF Bio an exclusive run of titles such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and The Da Vinci Code.

SF Bio, who in early 2005 had been prevented by the Swedish competition authority from buying Sandrew Metronome’s cinema chain, can now finally enjoy its monopolistic position, which already provided it with a 54% share of admissions from its 21 cinemas and 206 screens.