Two million admissions: Finnish films break 40-year record

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

27/06/2011 - For the first time since the Finnish Film Foundation began collecting cinema statistics in 1969, local features took more than two million admissions – more precisely, 2.1 million – in 2010 to control 27% of the market, which is a new record.

Total attendance exceeded seven million (7.6 million) – the best result since 2003 – according to the foundation’s Facts & Figures, which was published this week. Gross box office receipts at the 186 cinemas/289 screens reached €66 million, from an average ticket price of €8.70. The Finnish average is 1.4 annual visits to the movies.

2010 also saw the premiere of the first Finnish 3D feature, Maria Lindberg’s fully-animated Moomins and the Comet Chase [trailer], which contributed to almost double the number of 3D first releases and increase their share of admissions to 17%. US director Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was top of the list, selling 305,000 tickets.

”The success of local fare is partly due to the diversity of domestic productions, which last year totalled a record number of 23, and also the result of the digitisation of the theatres which take advantage of the less-expensive digital prints,” explained Finnish Film Foundation Managing Director Irina Krohn.

Both are supported by the foundation which in 2010 saw its allocations from the National Lottery exceed €20 million, up 14% on the previous year. The foundation subsidised local production by €18 million, shared by 78 different projects – another 118 received support for development, 168 for scriptwriting.

Four Finnish features qualified for the list of Top Ten Films, with Dome Karukoski’s Lapland Odyssey [trailer] at No 1, with 335,000 admissions, followed by Mari Rantasila’s Ricky Rapper and the Bicycle Thief (No 2/328000), Arto Halonen’s Princess (No 7/279,000) and Kari Väänänen’s Backwood Philosopher (No 9/217,000).

Full statistics here.