Reg. Trib. Milano n. 418 del 02.07.2007 - Direttore responsabile: Elisabetta Brunella

International Edition No. 188 - year 16 - 30 October 2021

Special issue on the occasion of the 28th International Women's Film Festival "Sguardi Altrove"
 
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Dear Readers,

Elisabetta Brunella as you will perhaps know, this October is a particularly important month for us: thirty years ago, MEDIA Salles came into being.
We have chosen to go on celebrating our anniversary by focusing on the future. This is why you’ll find an article on the opening of a new cinema, the Arcadia, in the vicinity of Bergamo (Northern Italy), an event that seems to us to be a good omen for everyone.
You will also find a report on Turkey, which we have presented at the International Women’s Film Festival “Sguardi Altrove” which has just ended in Milan.

Happy reading,
Elisabetta Brunella
Secretary General of MEDIA Salles

The Talk at Sguardi Altrove Film Festival - 2021

The increase of cinema-going in Turkey
by Elisabetta Brunella

Once again this year MEDIA Salles renewed their collaboration with the International Women’s Film Festival “Sguardi Altrove”. Our contribution came from our original field of work, which has been ongoing for thirty years now: documenting cinema-going in movie theatres by collecting statistical reports and presenting the key factors on the different European markets.
Whilst in 2018 we accompanied the programming of the Festival with a report on Bulgaria, this time we are concentrating on Turkey: this is the country to which the 28th edition of the festival directed by Patrizia Rappazzo has dedicated its “focus”, concentrating on filmmaking by women.

Today Turkey counts over 80 million inhabitants with a population that is clearly on the increase. As regards cinema-going, over the past twenty years the Country has seen the number of screens rise four times over, from about 800 to 3,200. Over the same period audiences have more than doubled and in the best years, almost tripled, from 26 million spectators in 2000 to 59 million in 2019 with peaks of 70 million in 2017 and 2018.
Of the 37 countries that MEDIA Salles analyses every year, Turkey records a first: it’s the nation where most domestic films are viewed, in fact they are the most widely viewed of all! 

Every year Turkish productions account for over half of admissions with percentages that come to around 55-60%, not to speak of the “Covid” year, a very special 2020, when admissions to domestic films represented as much as 80% of the total. Just to convey the idea, in Italy the average percentage of admissions of domestic films is about 25% while in France is between 30 and 40%.
Thanks to a friendly collaboration with Antrakt, the organization that best documents Turkey’s film production, MEDIA Salles has analysed the hundred films most viewed between 2016-2021 in Turkey.

Of these great, popular successes, 56 out of 100 are Turkish, whilst the remaining 44 are mostly films "made in the USA", starting with productions by Marvel, Disney and Pixar, in other words films for young people and families. Of the 56 domestic titles, 5 were directed by women.
A lot? Only a few? What we can state is that productions by Turkish women directors are certainly on the rise: between 1990 and 2005, 18 “female” films gained some visibility in Turkish theatres, whilst in the following 15 years this number rose to 119.

And so we can say that on an expanding cinema market, such as Turkey’s, strongly characterised by domestic productions, the impact of films made by women has increased decidedly: a phenomenon that an international event devoted to women’s cinema such as “Sguardi Altrove” couldn’t fail to report with great satisfaction.

(To read more, click here)

Turkey 2016 - 2021: three women and five films with record box office
by Virginia Fanin

Today’s world is full of classifications able to satisfy practically any sort of curiosity: starting out from the list of the 100 most widely viewed films in Turkey from 2016 to 2021 kindly provided by Antrakt, from the 56 Turkish titles that appear there, MEDIA Salles has singled out the productions directed by women that have been most successful at the box office:

Three women directed these films: Gupse Özay, Meltem Bozoflu and Tuğçe Soysop, who has signed three of the titles presented in the classification.
Let’s get to know them better!

Gupse Özay, born in 1984 in Izmir, started to cultivate her dream by enrolling in the Radio, Television and Cinema course at Ege University. In those same years she and her friends made a documentary “Yaman Yaşamişim”. Now she is a successful actress, screenwriter and director, as well playing an important role in the world of social media.

Her most widely viewed film is “Deliha 2”, (2018) the endearing story of a woman who wants to make a name for herself in the world of cooking. Gupse is both director and lead actress.
The film was so successful that it was screened not only at home but also in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Gupse was also awarded the prize for Best Movie Actress at the Turkey Golden Palm Awards in 2019.
Deliha 2”, now available on Netflix, is the sequel to “Deliha” (2014) in which the lead role was again played by Gupse Özay who, as an actress and screenwriter, is also present in “Görümce” (2016) and “Eltilerin Savaşı” (2020).

(To read more, click here)

ALL DIFFERENT ALL DIGITAL

This column hosts portraits of cinemas in Europe and the rest of the world which are quite different from one another but have in common the fact that they have all adopted digital projection.

Cinema Arcadia

Country
Site
Town
No. of screens
Digital screens
number and technology
Sound system
3D screens
number and technology
Italy
Arcadia
Stezzano, Bergamo
7
7 4K laser illuminated Christie projectors - series 4
Dolby Atmos - Meyer Sound on the two PLF screens
1 (active glasses)

A new cinema amidst the thousand and one obstacles of the pandemic
by Virginia Fanin

Conceived in 2019, in a different era, when Covid didn’t exist, the “Arcadia” brand’s new baby was inaugurated on 27 October 2021. Thanks to its avant-garde architecture and exceptional comfort, this seven-screen complex has become the carnation in the buttonhole of the new wing expanding the “Le Due Torri” shopping center in Stezzano by 8,000 sq. m.

We’re alongside the A4, the motorway running across North Italy and joining Turin and Milan to Venice and the Gulf of Trieste, more precisely at the gates of Bergamo, the city that suffered most during the pandemic.

It goes without saying that the expansion of the shopping center and the opening of the cinema are seen locally as a sign of hope. Not by chance the ceremony inaugurating the new wing, which took place in the afternoon, was attended by institutional representatives who stressed that the realisation of this project is an important step towards a return to normality.

In the evening it was the cinema that was in the limelight. Four hundred guests took part in the event, including Mario Lorini and Simone Gialdini, respectively President and Director General of the ANEC, the association of the cinema exhibitors, invited by Piero Fumagalli, the independent exhibitor considered the Italian pioneer of the new generation of multi-screen cinemas.

A tour of the complex, designed by the Architect Benjamin Feldtkeller, an expert in the leisure sector, made it possible to appreciate its innovative aspects.

Starting from the vast bar area, which welcomes spectators without obliging them to pass through a barrier of old-style cash-desks, and continues with the design of the theatres, marked by the exceptional size of the screens and by the distance between the rows of armchair seats, all of which can even be reclined and are fitted with foot rests and power sockets for recharging portable devices.

(To read more, click here)
 

Arcadia: a family affair

The Fumagalli family, exhibitors with a passion
by Elisabetta Brunella

It was certainly not the first time that the Fumagalli family had invited to an inauguration colleagues, friends, suppliers and authorities and all those who had contributed towards making their cinemas - or better their dreams.

Yet this evening event at Stezzano - while it’s only too banal to say that it’s a good sign of a return to normality - highlights that perseverance and confidence in the future that are characteristics of Piero Fumagalli, founder of the Arcadia brand, and of his family.

I still remember the inauguration of the Arcadia in Melzo, in the Milan metropolitan area, in 1997: no-one had ever seen a complex like this in Italy. And not even abroad, where multiplexes and multi-screen cinemas had come into being far earlier than they did in Italy.

The pre-opening for colleagues - whilst the gardeners were still putting the finishing touches to the plants for the inauguration ceremony with the Minister of Cultural Affairs - had revealed a wealth of marvels.

The clearly visible projection booths (still with analogical projectors, including the rare but everlasting 70 MM), the lighting diffused by 3M optic fibre fitted at the base of the screens and armchair seats, the pear-wood floors, light years away from the ever-present wall-to-wall carpeting in the complexes belonging to Europe’s big chains, but above all the giant (technically “Premium Large Format”) Energia auditorium with its 30-metre-wide screen…

(To read more, click here)
 


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Edito da: MEDIA Salles - Reg. Trib.
Milano n. 418 dello 02/07/2007
 
 
Direttore responsabile:
Elisabetta Brunella
 
 
Coordinamento redazionale:
Silvia Mancini
 
 
Raccolta dati ed elaborazioni statistiche: Paola Bensi, Silvia Mancini