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BOX OFFICE Germany

Decent 2017 figures for German cinemas

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- With the number of cinemas in Germany at a ten-year high, admissions and box-office takings show a slight but solid increase, as does the market share of German cinema

Decent 2017 figures for German cinemas
Suck Me Shakespeer 3 by Bora Dagtekin

On the eve of the opening of the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, the FFA (Germany’s national film funding institution), which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, has published the 2017 figures for cinema admissions in Germany, and it is characterised by a slight but solid growth on all accounts, recovering from the general downward turn suffered in 2013. 122.3 million admissions were recorded in 2017 (in comparison with 121.1 million in 2016), for a total of €1056 million in box office takings (€1023 million in 2016) – the second highest total turnover of all time. 

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This positive trend is partly linked to an increase in the number of cinemas (from 4739 in 2016 to 4803 – largely for the benefit of cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants – highlighted Peter Dinges, director of the FFA – a figure that’s not been seen in ten years), but this general trend is not solely linked to box office results. The market share of German productions has also increased from 22.7% to 23.9% (in terms of viewers). And overall, German releases brought in 28.3 million admissions in comparison to 27.7 million the previous year, all thanks to the success of a large blockbuster Suck Me Shakespeer 3 [+see also:
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, which beat its American counterparts to the top spot, despite being the only German production in the top 10. 

The third installment of the saga by Bora Dagtekin raked in 5.9 million viewers between its release on 26 October 2017 (with Constantin) and the end of the year (including more than 1.7 million in its opening weekend alone), followed by Star Wars - The Last Jedi (around 5.2 million admissions in early January), which was only released on 14 December and doubled its revenue. Four other German films also fared well in cinemas: Bullyparade – The Movie [+see also:
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 by comedian Michael "Bully" Herbig (13th in the rankings with 1.9 million admissions), Bibi & Tina 4 – Tohuwabohu Total [+see also:
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by Detlev Buck (16th with 1.7 million), Windstorm and the Wild Horses [+see also:
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by Katja von Garnier (26th with 1.1 million) and Four Against the Bank [+see also:
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by Wolfgang Petersen (starring Til Schweiger, Matthias Schweighöfer and Herbig, with more than 1.1 million admissions), which was released on 25 December 2016. Overall, out of the 233 new feature films released in Germany – topping last year (244 in 2016) –143 were fiction films, 90 were documentaries and 76 were international co-productions.

Dinges is optimistic for 2018, with new films such as those by Schweiger (Klassentreffen 1.0), Schweighöfer (100 Dinge) and Herbig (Ballon), plus the ambitious Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer [+see also:
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by Dennis Gansel, the on-the-road film 25KM/H [+see also:
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by Markus Goller starring Lars Eidinger, Roads [+see also:
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by Sebastian Schipper (Victoria [+see also:
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interview: Sebastian Schipper
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) and The Silent Revolution [+see also:
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by Lars Kraume, in the programme for Berlin International Film Festival. It's also worth noting that out of the 19 candidates for the Golden Bear, four are German productions, as well as the co-production supported by the FFA, A Fantastic Woman [+see also:
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, which has been nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

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(Translated from French)

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