Norwegian cinema recovery holds on - Narvik second best film of 2023

Cinema-going post-Covid continues to show healthy signs of recovery, according to the Norwegian cinema association Film & Kino which has released data for the first five months of 2023.

Admissions increased by 151,363 until the end of May compared to the same period in 2022 to reach 3.5 million.

The biggest B.O. hit so far according to filmweb.no is UIP’s US tentpole The Super Mario Bros Movie with 386,472 admissions. Next up is the Norwegian WW2 drama Narvik, which has sold 333,522 tickets in Norwegian cinemas via Nordisk Film. Erik Skjoldbjærg’s war epic has now passed 528,000 total admissions.

Two Norwegian animated films directed by Rasmus A. Sivertsen for Qvisten Animation are also in the Top 10 Norway 2023: When the Robbers Came to Cardamom Town (199,609 admissions) and A Mystery on the Cattle Hill Express (94,916).

“I am increasingly confident that we will be able to sell 10 million tickets this year. In that case, it will mean a solid upturn,” said Lundberg Pedersen. Indeed, 8.8 million tickets were sold in 2022, versus 5.7 million in 2021 and 4.8 million in 2020 during peak Covid time.

“It might be early to start predicting how 2024 will look like,” continues the head of Film & Kino Lundberg Pedersen, “but it’s clear that Norwegians are back in full force. And everything indicates that the cinema menu in 2024 will be even better than what we’ve had so far in 2023,” he said.