Romania Sees Decrease in Domestic Admissions and Increase in Debuts

31-10-2017

Romania Sees Decrease in Domestic Admissions and Increase in Debuts

By Iulia Blaga

Octav by Serge Ioan Celebidachi

BUCHAREST: Four more domestic films are to be released until the end of 2017, but the domestic films released this year will have substantially fewer admissions than in 2016. The 15 domestic films released to date had 176,649 admissions, while 20 domestic films sold 484,739 tickets in 2016. Ten debut features were released or finished in 2017.

The 2017 crop of films has not produced a popular youth film such as #Selfie 69 by Cristina Iacob (with 150,384 admissions in 2016), a comedy like Two Lottery Tickets by Paul Negoescu (133,788 admissions in 2016) or a festival darling such as Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation (55,533 admissions in 2016).

The 19 films released in 2017 include six debut features and three long documentaries, while other four debut features are ready to be released in 2018. Only three debut features and two documentaries were theatrically released in 2016.

According to statistics provided by Cinemagia, the most successful domestic films so far this year are Serge Ioan Celebidachi’s debut feature Octav (with 48,121 admissions) and Nae Caranfil’s new comedy6.9 on the Richter Scale (with 32,996 admissions).

Domestic documentaries, however, were more popular in 2017. Planet Petrila by Andrei Dascalescu had 4,756 admissions, while Dead Nation by Radu Jude had 4,075 admissions. In 2016 the documentary Cinema, mon amour by Alexandru Belc sold 3,355 tickets, while the second documentary released last year, Bondoc by Mihai Voinea, Mihai Mincan and Cristian Delcea, sold only 481 tickets.

Published in Romania