Everything about cinema and its audiences in the new year/from the effective price to the release of a failed movie

Fars News Agency-Cinema Group: It seems that some families show a greater desire to go to the cinema during Nowruz holidays, the sales statistics of films released during these days are proof of this claim. The main reason for the importance of Nowruz screening is in this matter. It means that the works released these days are more in the center of attention and will get a higher sales figure. This issue is not specific to these few years, and for many years the free time of Nowruz days has been tied to movies that have generally made memories.

This is why Nowruz screening is of special importance for cinematographers, and the cinema organization should proceed in this matter based on justice and choose works based on the policies of that organization and the general good of the people.

With this short introduction, we will have a look at the status of Nowruz 1402 screening, a screening that has reached 332 thousand and 585 people until today, April 7, which is equivalent to about 16 billion Tomans (source: Semfa).

* Everything is for comedy

The high price of tickets in Iranian cinema and in the economic conditions that is not a secret to anyone was one of the negative shocks that came to Iranian cinema, a shock that actually caused the cinema box office to be dedicated to comedies and satirical works, because it seems to a single family with several members. He will be satisfied with such a fee for comedy works.

This happened evidently after the Nowruz screening, according to the statistics of the Cinema Sales and Screening Management System (Samfa), since the beginning of the 4 Nowruz movies, namely Gharib, Bachahi Tofan, Arous Khayani Fereshte and Fossil, with 11 thousand and 332 screenings for This number of audience has hosted an average of 30 people each session.

But apart from these sales statistics, the important and significant point is the share of each film in the audience basket and cinema box office, an event that maybe the increase in ticket prices has a direct effect on it.

Among the existing works, a comedy work has occupied nearly 85% of the audience, and the remaining 15% is divided between 3 other works.

“Fossil” took the first place with 281 thousand 625 viewers and after that “Gharib” which had won many awards in the 41st Fajr Festival and was predicted to have a successful box office, stands in the second place with a significant distance; “The Stranger” managed to attract only 27 thousand 81 viewers to the cinema, of which 7 thousand 728 viewers, which is about 30% of the total audience, were from before the beginning of the new year and before the high price of cinema tickets.

“The Bride of Angel Street”, which is another comedy in Nowruz’s screening portfolio, is a little far from “Gharib” and they have even changed their place in the second place several times. Unfortunately, in this period of Nowruz screenings, contrary to what was emphasized, the selected works not only do not have much “variety”, but are generally inferior and superficial in terms of quality.

Except for the movie “Gharib”, which according to the Fajr awards is in an acceptable condition from the point of view of the film structure and content, the rest of the works can even be defined and categorized under vulgar works. Films such as “Bucharest”, “Left and Right”, “Fossil”, “Angel Street Bride”, “Equator” and “Camel Coat” are generally classified as low-quality works from a cinematic point of view, and from the point of view of content, they are nothing more than silly jokes of another message. They don’t have it for their audience.

*A movie with only 251 viewers

But perhaps the strangest work is still “Children of the Storm”, a film that, nearly a week after its release, only managed to attract 251 audiences in 67 screenings, which indicates the disaster of an average of 4 audiences per screening.

The film “Storm Children” directed by Sadegh Sadegh Daghiqi was produced about three years ago and participated in the 39th Fajr Film Festival; This film won the best film award at the Rushd festival and received the Golden Butterfly award for the best artistic achievement and the best young actor at the children’s festival. They had, but suddenly and perhaps even far from the director’s expectations, this film entered the Nowruz release cycle.

The reason given by Director General of Cinema Organization, Rohullah Sohrabi, regarding the addition of this film to this cycle was to diversify the genres in the Nowruz screening portfolio and to have a work for children and teenagers in this genre.

However, “Children of the Storm” has not only not achieved success at the box office but has not reached the minimum audience after the start of Nowruz screening, while other works aimed at children and teenagers have achieved great success in recent cinema screenings. “Dolphin’s Boy” and “Lupto” were two animations that have been at the top of the box office for many days; Perhaps, if the main theme was the variety of genres and the existence of a movie for teenagers, it would be better to use the “Smart Kid” animation.

The director of this work, Sadegh Sadegh Zahighi, had previously made “Dead Eater”, which did not achieve success in this film, and even his film was not accepted in the 38th Fajr Film Festival.

Even the same movie “Storm Children” was made before with “Forty Bald”, which did not have a happy ending at that time either. This film was not screened for a long time due to the complaint of one of the screenwriters that the story of the film was similar to his screenplays and it also lost the opportunity to participate in foreign festivals. Finally, according to the announcement of Cinema House, in connection with the story of the film, it was decided to give 30 million tomans to the person who claimed that his script was similar to the story of “Forty Bald” to end the case.

If you put all these events together, you may come to an obvious conclusion that this movie is not suitable for the Nowruz screening, which includes the best and most popular movies every year, and even replaced a large number of behind-the-scenes movies.

But leaving all these things aside, we should pay attention to the number of theaters showing this work, from the beginning of the screening of this film, which started on March 25 and at the same time as other Nowruz films, until now, more than a week has passed, only 34 theaters have opened it. has been dedicated to the screening of this work.

Although the production of Sadegh Sadegh Zahihi did not have the ability to fill the same number of theaters, it is as if the directors of the cinema organization themselves predicted the reception of this work by allocating a very low number of theaters for the screening of this work, but contrary to their previous promise that priority should be given to screening films This work, which seems to have no special value, was released on the 40th day of Fajr.

It seems that assigning such a work that does not have the ability to attract even the minimum audience in the cinema was a mistake that happened in the arrangement of Nowrozi screening.

*Conclusion

All these information and propositions show an important point that it seems that the choices made for Nowruz screening were not made correctly, because in general, the works either did not show good audience or the content lacked special value.

This is why it is suggested that Nowrozi screening should have its own “special task force” due to its strategic importance in the country’s cinema. A working group that selects works based on quantitative and qualitative indicators and has a “statement” for its selections. That is, it should be clearly defined what the purpose of the movie screening was, and finally, after the end of the Nowruz screening period, it should provide a detailed summary of the issue.

Finally, one of the functions of the existence of a cinema organization can be to improve the level of public taste of citizens. If a movie like “Fossil” or “The Bride of Angel Street” is released in Nowruz, it will not only not help this growth of taste, it will even cause it to decline.

Trying to improve the level of taste and aesthetics of receiving the audience is a task that has apparently been forgotten by the cinema organization for some time.

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