Norwegian films increase admissions by 8.9%; national market share hits 23.9%

Norway posted the best cinema attendance since 1983 and best results for local films since 1975.

Domestic films were the driving force behind last year’s strong cinema going year. A total of 13,119,180 Norwegians bought a cinema ticket of which 3,132,678 to watch a Norwegian film, ie 23.9% of the market.

The 8.9% increase in admission for local films was the highest in Europe, according to Guttorm Petterson, Head of the Norwegian Cinema Association Film & Kino who welcomed the sustained upward cinema-going trend.

Just like in Finland, three local films took the top of the admission chart. The Norwegian Oscar entry The King’s Choice by Erik Poppe sailed at the top with 713,276 admissions, followed by the family film Carpenter Andersen Meets Santa Claus by Terje Rangnes (496,760) and the action adventure Børning on Ice by Hallvard Bræin (438,137). Other films catering for difference audiences scored at the box office: the historical/adventure The Last King by Nils Gaup (271,374), documentary Doing Good by Margreth Olin and stop motion animated In the Forest of Hucky Bucky by Rasmus A. Sivertsen. Released on Christmas day, the film has now passed 354,000 admissions. Olin’s portrait of Norwegian healer and local legend Joralf Gjerstad was the top documentary of the year and second best-selling Norwegian documentary in modern times after Cool & Crazy (2000). 

The Finnish animated film Angry Birds-The Movie co-produced with Sony was the best-selling Nordic film, just above the Swedish Oscar-nominated A Man Called Ove.

Stine Helgeland, the Norwegian Film Institute’s Executive Director, Head of Promotion & International Relations said she has high expectations for 2017 with 12 family films such as Mikkel Sandemose’s tale about the Norwegian anti-hero the Ash Lad (The Ash Lad: In the Hall of the Mountain King), the remake of the national bauta in The 12th Man, and the latest films by the acclaimed Joachim Trier (Thelma), Ole Giæver (From the Balcony) and Iram Haq (What Will People Say).