The resilience of popular national cinemas in Europe (Part one)

Abstract

The national has not withered away in the era of globalisation, and national cinemas still persist in various ways, even in the smallest nations. Using data collected for the MeCETES project, this article (the first of two looking at these issues) examines the evidence of popular national cinemas in contemporary Europe (2005–2015). It looks at admissions data for domestic productions, nation by nation, demonstrating that most European countries enjoy a small number of considerable national successes each year. In 2011, for instance, the French production, Intouchables, topped France’s admissions chart (and also did extraordinarily well across Europe). National productions also outranked all other films, including multi-million-dollar Hollywood blockbusters, in Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, Poland and the Czech Republic. The majority of these national successes were small-scale films, with themes, characters or subject-matter that resonated in the country of production. Few of them were co-productions and few travelled successfully across borders. National audiences showed a remarkable commitment to such films, demonstrating that popular national cinema is still a meaningful presence across Europe. The second article (Part Two) will look at some of the strategies deployed to create attractive and repeatable consumer products, the most common being genre. It will then re-visit the concept of national cinema, asking what role it plays in the era of globalisation.