10/01/2013 - The film has been released on January 3 to 33,759 admissions and gross BO of €144,565

Vinko Brešan’s new film The Priest’s Children [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vinko Bresan
film profile], released on Jan 3, has scored the highest local opening weekend since Croatia’s independence with 33,759 admissions and gross BO of €144,737

Croatian director Vinko Brešan’s fifth feature film The Priest’s Children has been released on January 3 to 33,759 admissions and gross BO of €144,565, which is the highest local opening since Croatia’s independence.

The comedy about a young Catholic priest who comes to a small island and starts poking holes in condoms in an attempt to increase the birth rate was co-produced by Interfilm and Serbia’s Zillion Film and released through Continental Film on 17 prints.

The Priest’s Children also broke a more recent record set by another Interfilm production, Vlatka Vorkapić’s Sonja and the Bull [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which opened on Nov 29 with 9,949 admissions and €39,920 as the highest local opener since Brešan’s second film Marshal Tito’s Spirit from 2000. In the meantime, Sonja and the Bull became the fourth local best-seller with 69,718 tickets.

Marshal Tito’s Spirit is the third highest local grosser ever with over 100,000 admissions, while Brešan’s first film How the War Started on My Island (1997) is the best local performer ever with about 337,000 tickets. What Is a Man Without a Moustache directed by the current CEO of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre Hrvoje Hribar holds the second position, having sold 152,000 admissions in 2005.

It is very rare for a Croatian film in its country to sell tickets almost on the level of a Hollywood film (The Hobbit opened with 52,000 tickets). But the Hollywood-type ad & pub campaign was also helped by the fact that there is currently a heated debate in the country about a possible introduction of sexual education into schools, which is strongly opposed by the Catholic Church.