A film that aligns well with the cultural resonance-orientation is the Danish feature film Bamse (A Lucky Man, 2022, DK). A Lucky Man is a bio-pic about a stout Danish musician named Flemming “Bamse” Jørgensen (1947 - 2011) who performed/wrote a number of Danish pop evergreens. As the lead singer and main songwriter in the band ‘Bamses venner’ (literally Bamse’s friends), Bamse is a household name in his native country but little-known outside of it. The story of Bamse’s life is also the story of Denmark in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in particular. It is told with his many evergreens as musical accompaniment. The director, Henrik Ruben Genz, who co-wrote the screenplay with Bo Hr. Hansen, is a well-established film and TV drama director with experience working across various genres and with existing IP. The film was produced by production company Nimbus Film, which has a well-established track record in Danish film and TV production, co-produced by Uppercut Media and Ja Film (the latter based in Bamse’s native city of Aarhus). The film was financed by the Danish Film Institute’s market scheme – a testament to its potential for broad audience appeal beyond the average Danish feature film. Also indicative of its broad appeal is the co-financing supplied by the state-owned broadcaster TV 2 and both of the country’s two regional film boards. It was distributed by the domestic market leader, Nordisk Film Distribution, and had close to half a million domestic admissions making it the best-attended domestic film in 2022, the third-best attended film overall after Top Gun: Maverick (US, 2022) and Avatar: The Way of Water (US, 2022). A Lucky Man had no admissions outside of its home market (Lumiere Pro). As of July 2024, it has circulated in 22 VOD catalogs but only across the four Scandinavian countries (Lumiere VOD). In terms of critical recognition, its festival nominations and awards were similarly Danish-oriented, e.g. Robert and Bodil awards and nominations. Despite the lack of any international markets or admissions, Bamse was clearly successful in reaching domestic audiences.

The legitimacy as regards cultural resonance-orientation is not just based on successfully producing films that are popular with domestic audiences, but about producing films that connect with wide audiences on the basis of cultural proximity and specificity. Sometimes this involves adapting well-established culturally anchored IP such as well-known local novels, as can be seen in examples such as Estonian Seltsimees laps (EE, 2018), Croatian Dnevnik Pauline P. (HR, 2023) or Lithuanian Pietinia Kronikas (LT, 2024).

Films with a cinematic arts-orientation create their legitimacy on the basis of festival recognition and critical accolades. A film that aligns well with the cinematic art avenue is Sigurno mjesto (Safe Place, 2022, HR/SI). Sigurno mjesto is a drama about the abruptly suicidal Damir whose brother Bruno (played by writer-director Juraj Lerotić) and mother try desperately try to protect Damir from himself. In their search for a “safe place” - both psychologically, emotionally and physically - they find little support from an unempathetic system of distrustful police officers and condescending medical staff. Ultimately, they fail to prevent Damir from committing suicide. The film is autobiographical in the sense of being based on Lerotić’s experiences with his own brother’s suicide and in the sense that Lerotić taking on a role similar to the one he had in real life. Lerotić is not a professionally trained actor. Sigurno mjesto challenges viewers on the basis of its thematic orientation as well as its manner of storytelling and stylistic choices. The cause of Damir’s suicidal proclivity is never clarified, and the film generally positions the viewer in a non-omniscient position (Wilson 1986). Our curtailed access to character psychology is complemented by a number of cinematographic principles that obstruct the visual access to the main characters (distant framings, intervening objects, shooting through windows etc). Sigurno mjesto aligns itself with the traditions of art-cinema narration (Bordwell 1985) by highlighting the indeterminacy of personal psychology and opting for an aesthetic design that emphasizes temporal and spatial verisimilitude. Temporally, the film limits its action to 24 hours. It is a long-take, slow-paced film that features the ebb and flow vagaries of “real life” shifting between trivial moments and extremely distressful actions. The film has no traditional musical score but relies primarily on ambient sound design and dialogue. Spatially, the film is shot on location in in Zagreb and Split as opposed to being shot on a stage. The film has received considerable critical recognition at a large number of festivals both domestically and internationally, including three major awards of the Locarno Film Festival 2022. Outside of its extensive presence in the international festival circuit, Sigurno mjesto has also received a theatrical release in a number of markets outside of Croatia: six according to Lumiere Pro. As of July 2024, it has circulated in 12 VOD catalogs across a total of 12 countries (Lumiere VOD). However, its modest theatrical admissions both domestically (app. 11.000) and internationally (app. 5.000) suggest that it speaks to a niche viewership base across these markets.

Sigurno mjesto thus also exemplifies the two-fold challenge of the cinematic arts-oriented film. The domestic audience for cinematic arts-oriented films in small nations will typically be a niche audience. A well-established distributor of arthouse films from the Balkan region interviewed for this report described the efforts to promote local arthouse films in this fashion:

This white tablecloth is our potential audience. These are the people who actually love arthouse movies [our interviewee puts a glass upside down on the tablecloth]. What we do in Croatia is that we want to persuade the rest of this cloth, that doesn’t care about arthouse movies, that we actually have a good arthouse movie, that they don’t really give a s*** about, that has been on a very good festival that they really don’t give a s*** about. And we try to expand that and invest a lot of money so in the end we get this [our interviewee then puts a second glass upside down on the tablecloth next to the former glass]. With a lot, a lot of effort, and a lot, a lot of money.

Domestic audiences – even provided the significant promotional efforts our interviewee refers to – thus essentially remain a niche audience. Reaching international festivals and international distributors provides a second key distribution challenge. International distribution deals are in most cases more important for these films economically than the actual admissions in these markets, as these generally do not contribute significantly beyond the initial sale of rights (Finney 2014). Sigurno mjesto exemplifies how international festival success does not necessarily translate to international admissions, but the films of well-established directors will generally reach many markets and have a substantially bigger audience internationally than domestically. We see this with both well-established arthouse directors such as Miguel Gomes and Pedro Costa but also with debut films such as Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic’s Murina (HR/BR/US/SI 2021) that premiered in 2021 in The Directors’ Fortnight program in Cannes. It also won the Camera d’Or and went on to premiere in 18 international markets. France was Murina’s top market, accounting for over half of its 82,000 admissions. While widely distributed, most markets had fewer than 1,000 admissions. As of January 2025, it was available in 41 VOD catalogs across nine countries, mainly on TVOD, with its only major SVOD presence on French Amazon Prime. It also appeared in library services in Denmark and Sweden and specialist platforms like Mubi in Italy and BFI Player in the UK.

International markets are also key for films with an export-orientation but these films are aimed at wider audiences. The revenue generated by admissions are key and not merely the initial sale of rights. Export-oriented films can also be singled out individually with Irish films providing most of the examples but also with examples from Flanders and Denmark. Family-oriented animation films are good examples of export-oriented films. Examples include Robinson Crusoe (BE/FR/US, 2016), The Queen’s Corgi (BL/US, 2019), Bigfoot Family (BL/FR, 2020), Song of the Sea (IE/LU/BE/FR/DK, 2014) and Drømmebyggerne (DK, 2020). These films had between1 and 6% of their admissions in the domestic market, which clearly suggests that they were mainly produced with international markets in mind. Bigfoot Family for instance – a sequel to The Son of Bigfoot (BE/FR, 2017) – is a good example of an export-oriented film. As we will see later, there are a number of different characteristics tied to export-oriented films. Bigfoot Family is one of the export-oriented films that bases its action in a specific non-domestic culture, in this case the US. Although the action has certain fantastic elements, the action does take place in identifiable locations such as Portland and Alaska.

There are of course also examples of hybrid films that have ambitions or success that cuts across the described orientations. Examples of such films could be the Irish An Cailín Ciúin (IE, 2022) and the Flemish Close (BE/FR/NL, 2022). Both films can be understood as cultural resonance-oriented films. An Cailín Ciúin is an Irish language film set in rural Ireland in 1981 based on Claire Keegan’s critically renowned novella Foster (2009). Close follows the relationship of two boys from a French speaking community that attend a Dutch speaking school, situating its themes of bonding, gender and sexuality within the specific context of Walloon-Flemish cultural-linguistic tensions. An Cailín Ciúin was the most popular Irish film in Irish cinemas in 2022, as well as the fifth most popular Irish film since 2014, and Close was the second most popular film in Belgium in 2022. However, the two films also had traits associated with cinematic arts-orientation and even export-orientation: Both films had their initial premiere at top three festivals where they also won awards. An Cailín Ciúin won the Crystal Bear in Berlin and Close won the Grand Prix in Cannes. They each went on to a string of other festivals for most of 2022, and both were nominated for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards. Both films also achieved considerable international success. As of April 2025, An Cailín Ciúin had 1.1M admissions across 32 markets and Close had 1.5M admissions across 43 markets. While the domestic market was the most important single market for both films, most of their admissions came from international markets with France being the biggest market. Both films also saw a string of international premieres in the months following the 2023 Academy Awards.

As the Lithuanian example suggests, the ownership mix underlying the cinema infrastructure likely plays an important role. We do not yet have a comparative ownership mix for all CresCine markets. This calls for further research but in a period where large transnational cinema chains are facing increased pressure even in their largest markets, it is not unreasonable to assume that increasing admissions for domestic titles in small markets is not a top priority. And as such, cinemas that are more closely connected to the local industries — for example locally vertically integrated companies — are likely to have a stronger commitment to such films.

Looking across the CresCine markets, we also find much variation in what kinds of companies make up the distribution sector — and while there is still little research on the role of European distributors in their domestic markets, we believe these differences are significant. Cinematic distribution is, to a larger extent than production and exhibition, a zero-sum game. New entrants in the market will in most cases have to compete with the established players for a limited number of titles to acquire on one hand and for a limited amount of quality screenings on the other. This gives the larger players a competitive advantage as they can exert more influence over producers and cinemas.

However, it is also important to consider that being a sub-distributor of licensed titles that are also being released and marketed in other territories is significantly different from being a first-run distributor that is responsible for releasing and marketing a title in its initial home market. Not only does the latter in most cases involve higher risk and higher investments — and not always with a higher reward — it also requires developing release and marketing strategies rather than adapting them.

Given these two factors, we can assume that for any domestic film with broad market ambitions, it would be ideal to be released by a distributor that has a significant share of the total domestic market, and at the same time is committed to and experienced in releasing local titles. Looking across the CresCine markets, we find that these kinds of distributors are rare. The strongest examples are found in Denmark and Flanders, markets with high domestic market shares and high awareness of local titles among the public.

That said, distributors with strong commitment to domestic films and a significant share of the overall markets cannot exist if there are few or no domestic films that reach broad local audiences for these distributors to release. We also find several examples, notably in Lithuania, where most of the top performing domestic titles from 2014 to 2022 have been self-distributed by the production company. As such the impact of domestic distributors is difficult to evaluate.

Key issue: building and maintaining audience habits for domestic films

One of the key features of cultural resonance is establishing a bond with a sizable domestic audience. This is no easy feat, and we can see that in e.g. Croatia, Portugal and Ireland there are disconnections between local films and local audiences that have strong historical roots that are difficult to remedy. A Croatian film producer interviewed for this report stated that it would have been easier to get Croatian audiences to see his most recent film if they had believed that it was Serbian, a reference to the fact that specific Serbian films have reached higher admissions in Croatia than any domestic film. Looking at the highest-ranking domestic films in national cinemas we see that in Denmark, Lithuania, and Estonian domestic films regularly capture the top spot, and are rarely or never outside of the top ten. On the other hand, we see Croatian, Irish and Portuguese films struggling to reach the top ten or even top 20. Interestingly, a Croatian distributor-producer interviewed for this report believed that the cinema infrastructure in Croatia was actually quite perfect for cultural resonance-oriented films. The interviewee did not endorse tweaking the cinema infrastructure to be more accommodating to Croatian cinematic arts-oriented films but instead endorsed producing a higher number of cultural resonance-oriented films such as Dnevnik Pauline P. (HR, 2023) or Drazen (HR, 2024).

Note that the numbers for Belgium include both Flanders and Wallonia. As all the domestic films to reach the top ten in the period were Flemish, it is likely that they would have ranked higher if only admission from Flemish cinemas had been included.

While most markets have various forms of audience building schemes, this issue also reaches into the financing of potentially popular domestic films. There is a limit to how popular films with a clear cinematic arts-orientation, often described as difficult films, can become even if they address questions and themes that are culturally resonant. To build habits of going to cinemas to watch domestic films among wider audiences it is therefore also a requirement that there is a regular production of domestic films with broad audience potential. In terms of financing, however, these films often find themselves in a challenging middle position. While these films serve audience needs in a different way than the high-budget international fare, they are still to some extent competing for the same broad audiences. On one hand, these films therefore require higher production values and investments compared to films with a narrower audience ambition. On the other hand, public bodies are often reluctant to support films perceived as overly “commercial”.

All industries, including those that have strong connections to the local cinema-going audiences, also face the challenge that cinema audiences are becoming increasingly older. While this is in part a result of an increase in cinema attendance among older age cohorts it is also the result of a decrease in the number of cinema visits by younger audiences that have adopted new internet based habits – a pattern that is also visible in some of our markets such as the Danish one. With a low production output, it is extremely difficult to establish cinema-going practices amongst children and teenage audiences for local films. A distributor interviewed for this report adds that this requires other initiatives such as audience-development strategies in the education sector.