03-11-2016

Two Romanian Comedies Cash in Nearly One Million Euro

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    Selfie69 by Cristina Iacob Selfie69 by Cristina Iacob

    BUCHAREST: Two Romanian comedies released this autumn, #selfie 69 by Cristina Iacob and Two Lottery Tickets by Paul Negoescu, are topping the domestic box office, together taking in 927,129 EUR / 4,171,777 RON so far.

    The Two Lottery Tickets by Paul Negoescutop earner #selfie 69 was produced by Adrian Sârbu, the ex-CEO of Central European Media Enterprises, through Zazu Film. It was released by Zazu Film on 16 September 2016, had 134,126 admissions and 520,335EUR / 2,341,337 RON gross through 31 October 2016. The film is a sequel to Iacob’s #selfie (Zazu Film), which was the domestic box office hit of 2014 with 87,288 admissions and 259,971 EUR / 1,143,875 RON gross.

    Unlike #selfie 69, which was supported by the Romanian Film Centre, Two Lottery Tickets / Două lozuri is an independent film made with a budget of approximately 30,000 EUR. The film, produced by Actoriedefilm.ro in coproduction with Papillon Film and Spain’s Kikland, cashed in 13 times its budget, earning 406,794 EUR / 1,830,440 RON at the box office and had 101,291 admissions. The film was released by RoImage 2000 on 7 October 2016.

    Domestic comedies are leading the pack of domestic releases in autumn 2016. This is unusual for a landscape where comedies had been scarce. A third comedy, Eastern Business / Eastern Business by Igor CobileanskiAfacerea est by Igor Cobileanski, the first Romanian/Lithuanian coproduction, opened on 28 October 2016. The film produced by Alien Film in coproduction with Lithuania’s Just a Moment and Republica Moldova's Brio Film was released by Movie Production Entertainment on 28 October 2016 and had 6,276 admissions and 7,170 EUR / 32,265 RON gross so far.

    Maren Ade’s dramedy Toni Erdmann, produced by Germany’s Komplizen Film in coproduction with Austria’s Coop99 Filmproduktion and Romania’s Hi Film Productions, sold 7,966 tickets and cashed in 13,899 EUR / 62,541 since 21 October 2016. Micro Film is the local distributor.

    The two Romanian films that were selected for the 2016 edition of Cannes had more modest results from their summer releases. Sieranevada (Mandragora) by Cristi Puiu had 29,100 admissions and 61,060 EUR / 274,752 RON gross through 9 September 2016, while the second film Dogs / Câini by Bogdan Mirică had 28,352 admissions and 69,723 EUR / 313,733 RON gross through 23 September 2016. Sieranevada is distributed by Mandragora, while Dogs is distributed by Transilvania Film.