Growing market share for local productions

13/10/2008

Domestic films are this year enjoying popularity among audiences. This observation – which is the premise of the "Deutscher Film - Groß bei CineStar" initiative launched last week by major cinema network CineStar – has been confirmed by figures published by the EDI Nielsen agency. During the first nine months of this year, the market share for German film has risen to 21.3% (compared to 14.4% in 2007).

The number of admissions for domestic productions from January-September stands at 19.9m, and several local titles have exceeded the threshold of one million viewers. These include Dennis Gansel’s The Wave [+see also:
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film profile], Ute Wieland’s Freche Mädchen (both distributed by Constantin), and Doris Dörrie’s Cherry Blossoms - Hanami [+see also:
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It should be pointed out that this year’s biggest box office hit (which is also the best-performing film in the history of German cinema) – Til Schweiger’s Rabbit Without Ears [+see also:
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These figures are corroborated by the enthusiasm sparked by Germany’s hopeful for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination: Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex [+see also:
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The trend looks set to continue until the end of the year, with last Thursday’s launch of Marco Kreuzpaintner’s Krabat [+see also:
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film profile] (distributed by Fox); and the forthcoming release of Max Färberböck’s A Woman In Berlin [+see also:
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film profile], starring Nina Hoss (Constantin - October 23); Philipp Stölzl’s North Face [+see also:
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film profile] (Majestic - October 23); 1½ Knights - In Search of the Ravishing Princess Herzelinde, directed by and starring Schweiger (Warner - December 18); and Heinrich Breloer’s saga, Die Buddenbrooks, to be launched by Warner on Christmas Day.