Positive Attendance For First Six Months In Finland, Iceland And Sweden

In Finland, admissions for all films (3,580,000) and for local films (1.500.000) dipped by 4% during the first half of 2011, according to Filmikamari, the Finnish Chamber of Films With July figures, the drop for total admissions between 2010 and 2011 was reduced to 1%, a positive sign for the rest of the year.

"2010 was obviously a tremendously good year for Finnish cinemas and Finnish films in particular so a small drop in audience figures for this year was to be expected. But 2011 is shaping up to be a good year for the Finnish cinema market none the less," said Reetta Hautamäki, information coordinator at the Finnish Film Foundation. "We have a record-breaking 25 domestic releases scheduled for this year and are expecting them to reach approximately 1.5 million admission in total which is well above the yearly average for the last decade of around 1.3 million. Furthermore, the Hollywood summer blockbusters should help overall admissions surpass the 7 million mark for the second year in a row."

The most successful Finnish film so far this year is Vares-The Kiss of Evil, first part of a six film series - that clocked in 204,638 admissions for a third place at the Finnish Top Ten. The biopic Hella W was the second most popular Finnish film with 85,070 admissions. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ruled at the Top Ten with over 245,000 tickets sold, above Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 (305,217).

In Iceland, total admissions reached 753,639, slightly below last year's 782,905. "The first six months of 2011 is so far very positive even though admissions and box office are slightly down from the previous year," noted Snaebjorn Steingrimsson, managing director of SMAIS, the association of film rights holders in Iceland. "This difference is almost certainly due to Avatar in 2010 which was a one off smash hit, taking in more than twice the admissions and box office of the number one film for the first half of 2011 [Pirates of the Caribbean: on Stranger Tides - 35,873 admissions]. It is also nice to see a Nordic movie in the top 2 of this list," stressed Steingrimsson referring to the Danish hit Clown-The Movie that grossed over ISK40 million, slightly under Pirates' ISK42 million. But in terms of admissions, Mikkel Nørgaard's comedy was the number one title in Iceland with 41,124 tickets sold in the first six months.

The market share for Icelandic films was 6% with 45,186 admissions, down from 2010's 67,161 admissions and 8.6% market share. This year's biggest local success so far is Our Own Oslo by Reynir Lyngdal produced by Hrönn Kristinsdóttir and Anna María Karlsdóttir. The comedy was the fourth title in terms of box office and sixth in terms of admissions.

In Sweden, Swedish films fared strongly the first half of 2011, bringing in 7,846,380 people to cinemas, i.e. 23.8% of all admissions. According to statistics from the Swedish Film Institute, this is a slight increase of 0.7% from 2010 and 7% above the average for the last decade. As many as four Swedish titles were in the Top Ten all films: Colin Nutley's House of Angels-Third Time Around (494,446 admissions) was number three after Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides and Tangled, and number one of all Swedish films. Another Svensk Filmindustri title, Lena Koppel's The Importance of Tying up Your Shoes was number five of all titles and two of all Swedish films with 371,132 admissions. Two Nordisk Film releases scored with local audiences: Pernilla August's Beyond supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond (287,081 admissions) and the family film Åsa-Nisse Wälkom to Knohult (256,119 admissions).

General attendance fell by 3.4% from 2010 to 7.8 million, which is still 2.2% higher than 2009 and the average over the last decade.