Nordic Admissions Report 2012: Part 1: Finland, Norway

FINLAND
Historical 28% market share
Finland had a record year in 2012 with an estimated 8.5 million total admissions, the best result since 1983 according to Filmikamari, the Finnish Chamber of Films. Domestic films as well had a historical 2.4 million admissions, up from the 2010 record of 2.1 million and 50% up from 2011. This is the highest audience for Finnish films in 43 years, since 1969 when reliable film statistics were first introduced.

Three Finnish films were in the Top Ten. In third position after the blockbusters Ice Age 4, Continental Drift and the top title Skyfall was the family film Ricky Rapper and Cool Wendy produced by Kinotar. The third instalment of the series based on popular children's books had almost 310,000 visitors, an excellent result, although lower than the second film Ricky Rapper and the Bicycle Thief (330,000 admissions in 2010). Mika Kaurismäki's comedy Road North was seventh in the Top Ten (264,830 admissions) and Finland's Oscars' entry Purge number eight (208,501 admissions).

Harri Ahokas, head of Distribution at the Finnish Film Foundation says the reason for the excellent performance of Finnish films is twofold. It comes from a better financing of domestic films and from the digitization of screens, now over 95% of the cinema market. "The Finnish Film Foundation's financial resources have been growing five years in a row to €28.5 million last year. While 5-10 years ago we had 12-15 domestic premieres, last year we had 26 fiction films and 10 documentaries on screens. The Foundation's support for screen digitisation in small and mid-size urban zones has also boosted domestic admissions. Today, a Finnish film can open with over 100 screens, more than the double compared to the 35mm era," notes Ahokas.

Looking at genres, Ahokas said that drama accounted for the largest share of domestic admissions (42%). Thanks to a better screen presence with the digital format, the number of documentaries in cinemas rose to ten films in 2012 that took 5% of domestic admissions with 112,000 viewers. Last year's biggest success with over 28,000 admissions was Jari Litmanen-The King featuring the legendary footballer, but a new documentary on screens since early December is set to break this record: Robin, a film about a 14 year-old teen idol singer, produced by Solar Films. "It is so nice to see kids under 10 buying tickets to see their ultimate favourite on screens. It is a totally new audience for a documentary," said Ahokas.

TOP TEN FINNISH FILMS 2012

Source: Filmikamari


NORWAY
‘Winner takes all'
Boosted by attractive blockbuster movies, total admissions climbed up by 4% in 2012 to 12.1 million, the third best result of the last decade. Two Norwegian films largely contributed to these positive figures: the Oscar nominated Kon-Tiki, best-selling film of the year, and the family film Journey to the Christmas Star, number five in the Top Ten after The Hobbit-An Unexpected Journey, Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, and Skyfall. Despite those two locomotives, Norwegian films fell sharply by 24.3% to 2.2 million admissions, and their market share stood at 17.8%, against 24.5% in 2011. Nina Refseth, head of the Norwegian Film Institute says the decline in admissions for Norwegian films is disappointing, although it didn't come as a surprise.

"There are basically three reasons for the decrease in national admissions. The most important one is simply fewer Norwegian releases. This is particularly obvious for family films, where Journey to the Christmas Star is the single positive exception with a total of 443,000. The other release, Skvis, was not supported by NFI, and only sold 7,000 tickets.

Furthermore, the previous years we have always had one or two titles selling over two years. For 2012, that was not the case, so the first three months were particularly weak. Finally, it seems like we are facing a situation of "winner takes all". The big blockbusters take over, the smaller art-house films are pretty much as before, but the mid-range films seem to be selling less than before. Whether this is a long term situation or not remains to be seen. However, the expectations for 2013 are quite different. There are a number of strong releases in different genres and a total of seven children/family films. My best guess for now is that we might see numbers like the ones for 2011, with 2.8 million admissions, and perhaps even more" concluded Refseth.

Regarding cinema halls, the full digitization of screens (finalised in 2011) continued to have a positive influence on cinema-going and film offer in Norway. Cinemas with less than 10,000 admissions had the biggest surge in attendance (+15%) while the average increase for the larger cinemas was 4% according to Birgitte Langballe, Head of Communications for Norway's cinema association Film & Kino.

TOP TEN NORWEGIAN FILMS 2012

Source: Film & Kino

Written by Annika Pham