26-05-2016

Domestic Release for Mungiu's Graduation After Cannes Premiere

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    Graduation by Cristian Mungiu Graduation by Cristian Mungiu

    BUCHAREST: Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation/Bacalaureat, awarded Best Director ex-aequo for its Cannes premiere, sold 9,671 tickets in the first weekend. The film was released on 19 May 2017.

    This was a moderate result but a good one compared to other awarded Romanian films which were launched in a more favorable context, in March. Radu Jude's Aferim!, which opened domestically on 13 March 2015 (after winning Best Director Award in Berlin), sold 20,039 tickets in the first weekend and beat the record set in 2013 by Calin Peter Netzer's Child's Pose produced by Parada Film with 19,729 admissions. Jude’s film has had the most successful opening for a domestic film in the last 13 years.

    On 19 May 2016 Graduation also had avant premieres in 12 towns and four cinemas in Bucharest, including Sala Palatului, the former Communist Party hall where the national premiere included live transmissions from Cannes. Now the film is screening in 33 towns.

    The director and actors are now taking the film to another four towns and a caravan will go to six small towns with no cinemas. Voodoo Films is the domestic distributor.

    Graduation has been sold by Wild Bunch to more than 40 countries. The film was produced by Cristian Mungiu through Mobra Films in coproduction with France’s Why Not Productions, Belgium’s Les Films du Fleuve and France 3 Cinema with the support of the Romanian National Film Centre and Eurimages.