During my day to day work I have always been amazed by the problem to find even the simplest data I need. This is of course understandable on an European level, where the aggregation of data and the differences between various regions sometimes cause problems even for the institutions designed to collect such data as for example the European audiovisual observatory. But the difficulties on the national level aren’t that different.
In the specific case, I will be talking about in this article, I was searching for data of the admissions for Slovak movies from 1993 until today. As you can all already probably guess there is no single source containing the above mentioned data and you have to search for it bit by bit and from different sources. And even after this painful and long process you still don’t have the necessary complete picture. In this case the sources are to be found for a more recent years from 2000 till 2011 (thanks to the hard work of the Slovak film institute and its periodical Filmsk with a rich and free archive and the publication "Report on the state of Slovak audiovisual situation" which is the only reliable and extensive source available in Slovak and English). But the search for complete data from the 90ties was partly unsuccessful even after two days. So all I can in the end present to you is not a complete picture, but still pretty representative (I didn’t find any data only for 7 majority Slovak works).
So now returning back to the theme of this article: what are the most successful Slovak movies in cinemas in our independent history (from 1993)? The answer to this question would be more simple and tragic before the year 2008, because from the top 10 only one movie (Thomas the Falconer from 2000) would have had a production date in the new century. The period from 2000 till 2006 has been the worst in history of the Slovak film industry. The number of produced films was on its lowest point. In 2006 there was practically no film production since the number of Slovak majority feature films produced reached zero - this happened last time 60 years before in 1947! The negative situation in those times is reflected best on the low number of Slovak majority fiction and documentary films produced in the period 2002 - 2006 (see the table nr. 1) From this perspective it is therefore no surprise that the answer to the above mentioned question would in 2007 be, that in the top 10 of the most successful movies in cinemas only one had a production date in the new century (Thomas the falconer from 2000). That means that even when something got produced in these difficult times, there was no one willing to see it. This was of course reflected in the share of Slovak films that were released in cinemas on the whole attendance. In the table nr. 2 this trend can be seen clearly when during the period 2003 - 2007 the share of admissions of majority Slovak film production was on the level of 0,51 %!
2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 (sept.) | |
Slovak majority films - fiction | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 4 |
Slovak majority films - docu. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 |
Slovak minority films | 1 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 4 | 2 |
Slovak maj. and min. films | 6 | 8 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 10 | 11 | 20 | 8 | 8 |
Table nr. 1: Number of produced Slovak feature films and documentaries (majority and minority) during the period 2002 - 2011. Sources: The Reports on the state of Slovak audiovisual situation 2003 - 2010, Filmsk, issue No. 9/2011.
2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 (sept.) | |
Number of admisions | 2 968 162 | 2 901 554 | 2 201 258 | 3 395 670 | 2 772 909 | 3 362 513 | 4 145 671 | 3 913 326 | 1 606 837 |
Slovak majority films | 2 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 5 |
Admisions slovak maj. films | 4 297 | 6 887 | 21 618 | 5 493 | 28 556 | 511 013 | 288 711 | 66 301 | 14 343 |
Share of admisions maj, slovak films | 0,14% | 0,24% | 0,98% | 0,16% | 1,03% | 15,20% | 6,96% | 1,69% | 0,89% |
Number of slovak + minority films | 5 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 12 | 17 | 9 | 7 |
Admisions slovak + minority films | 27 548 | 44 303 | 37 025 | 10 498 | 147 786 | 525 123 | 454 065 | 75 598 | 159 330 |
Share of admis. slovak + min. films | 0,93% | 1,53% | 1,68% | 0,31% | 5,33% | 15,62% | 10,95% | 1,93% | 9,92% |
Table nr. 2: share of Slovak majority films and the share of all Slovak films (including minority co productions) in years 2003 - 2011 (September). Sources: The Reports on the state of Slovak audiovisual situation 2003 - 2010, Filmsk, issue No. 9/2011.
Than all of this changed between 2007 - 2008. In 2007 the film production increased rapidly to 10 and more significantly the majority of those works were majority Slovak movies. In 2008 the trend continued and reached its peak in 2009 when a total of 20 works were produced, majority of them Slovak majority works. This has as expected altered the minimal shares of Slovak majority works in the cinemas. Notably in 2008 the results of the smash box office hit Bathory with more than 400 thousand of admissions increased the domestic share above 15 %. This exceptional result altered the historic charts of most successful Slovak titles and after 15 years there occurred a change at the top of the charts as Bathory replaced the number one hit "The fountain for Suzanne II". In 2009 the top 10 was stormed yet again by 2 titles "Soul at peace" and the independent low budget hit "BRATISLAVAfilm" but the overall results in this year were less glimmering, but still exceptional and positive. But in 2010 and 2011 (until September) it all looks like we moved to the levels of production and share of attendance in the year 2007. Only one title got into the top 30 of Slovak movies in 2010 (legend of the flying Cyprian 9th place) and the situation looks even worse in 2011 when the most successful title Gypsy just barely made it into the top 20.
But this will change for sure as the second feature film of the successful independent creator of the BRATISLAfilm using an inventive ad campaign brought to cinemas another hit taking place in the capital Slovakia "Lóve", which made a splash in cinemas creating an Slovak record for the first opening weekend at the level of 63 thousand spectators and after more than a month reached the level of 100 thousand spectators, which is considered as success even in the category of foreign blockbusters. So after all this hit will yet again save the reputation of Slovak cinematography in our cinemas.
This brings us to the basic conclusion, that is true not only for the last 4 years in our cinemas: the vast majority of the attendance is created by 1 or 2 feature titles a year (for example 2008: Bathory - 84 % of the admisions of slovak majority titles, 2009: Soul at peace and BRATISLAVAfilm - 61 %, 2010: Legend of flying Cyprian - 86 %, 2011). But this trend is not that different from other territories where the share of national cinema depends on these hits, but maybe not on such extensive level.
So after all these considerations let us return to the table nr. 3, which shows us the current standing of Slovak majority titles. First thing that is noticeable is that the top 4 films have been seen by as many people as the rest of the rest of 64 titles. This speaks a lot about the attention that the general public pays to local movies. This fact is illustrated on the indicator, that only the first top 10 movies have been seen by more than 1 % of the whole population (of course this indicator doesn’t count in other forms of exploitation of films but is only illustrative) and only 17 got the attention of 0,5 % of the population. Of course the smaller admissions are naturally more common in the case of documentary titles, but there are even some feature film releases that didn’t reach 10 thousand spectators (I counted 15 out of 38).
- most succesfull directro, suzanne series, Bathory and suzanne series comparing to other titles....
Rank | Title | Year of production | Admisions |
1 | Bathory | 2008 | 426 901 |
2 | The Fountain For Suzanne II | 1993 | 343 206 |
3 | Soul at Peace | 2009 | 116 810 |
4 | The Fountain For Suzanne III | 1999 | 112 353 |
5 | Suzanne | 1996 | 98 324 |
6 | ... Crying For The Moon | 1995 | 76 771 |
7 | Passionate Kiss | 1994 | 64 124 |
8 | BRATISLAVAfilm | 2009 | 60 454 |
9 | The Legend of Flying Cyprian | 2010 | 57 120 |
10 | On The Beautiful, Blue Danube | 1994 | 57 006 |
11 | Thomas The Falconer | 2000 | 51 004 |
12 | The Garden | 1995 | 49 011 |
13 | Rivers Of Babylon | 1998 | 45 339 |
14 | Mosquitoes‘ Tango | 2009 | 40 613 |
15 | Music | 2007 | 33 598 |
16 | Orbis Pictus | 1997 | 32 930 |
17 | Broken Promise | 2009 | 30 518 |
18 | Lidice | 2011 | 28 856 |
19 | Gypsy | 2011 | 26 340 |
20 | Cruel Joys | 2002 | 25 182 |
21 | Landscape | 2000 | 24 497 |
22 | Truth or Dare | 2001 | 22 953 |
23 | Gypsy Virgin | 2008 | 19 557 |
24 | Blue Heaven | 1997 | 16 384 |
25 | The City of the Sun | 2005 | 13 836 |
26 | Heaven, Hell... Earth | 2009 | 13 808 |
27 | Half-life | 2007 | 12 757 |
28 | My Husband`s Woman | 2009 | 12 269 |
29 | Blind Loves | 2008 | 11 311 |
30 | Osadné | 2009 | 10 134 |
31 | The escape to Budín | 2002 | 9 196 |
32 | Apricot island | 2011 | 8 433 |
33 | Two Syllables Behind | 2004 | 8 060 |
34 | Tepuy | 2007 | 7 594 |
35 | The Camp Of Fallen Women | 1997 | 7 074 |
36 | Terminal Station | 2005 | 5 528 |
37 | Mongolia – In the Shadow of Genghis | 2010 | 5 447 |
38 | It Will Stay Between Us | 2003 | 4 945 |
39 | Devin masacre | 2011 | 4 756 |
40 | King of Thieves | 2003 | 4 665 |
41 | Return of the Storks | 2007 | 3 865 |
42 | Meeting the Enemy | 2007 | 3 756 |
43 | Other Worlds | 2006 | 3 618 |
44 | Nicky's Family | 2011 | 3 599 |
45 | Erotic nation | 2009 | 3 183 |
46 | Hannah and Her Brothers | 2001 | 3 175 |
47 | Small Celebration | 2008 | 2 800 |
48 | Rain Falls on Our Souls | 2002 | 2 567 |
49 | Big Respect | 2008 | 2 070 |
50 | Pururambo | 2005 | 2 018 |
51 | Sila ľudskosti - Nicholas Winton | 2002 | 1 920 |
52 | The Border | 2009 | 1 698 |
53 | Matchmaking Mayor | 2011 | 1 329 |
54 | "Unknown antarctic" | 2007/2008 | 1 195 |
55 | Amazonia Vertical | 2004 | 756 |
56 | "Pictures of the old world" | 1972 | 736 |
57 | Here We Are | 2005 | 727 |
58 | 66 seasons | 2003 | 686 |
59 | "The corpse must die" | 2011 | 639 |
60 | Demons | 2007 | 584 |
61 | Last Caravan | 2008 | 559 |
62 | Protected territory | 2010 | 551 |
63 | "Times of grimace" | 2009 | 394 |
64 | Snapshots | 2008 | 298 |
65 | Quartétto | 2002 | 293 |
66 | Martin Slivka - The Man Who Planted Trees | 2007 | 246 |
67 | The house | 2011 | 228 |
68 | "Little furious Robinson" | 2009 | 29 |
Table nr. 3: The ranking of Slovak and Slovak majority movies from 1993 till September 2011 according to their admissions (Note: for 7 titles there are no data, for 4 titles the data indicated is for the whole EU region drawing from the resources of European audiovisual observatory Database Lumiére, for the rest of the titles the sources are The monthly periodical Filmsk, "The Reports on the state of Slovak audiovisual situation" and the data from the Slovak film distributors union)
