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

International Edition No. 156 - year 14 - 29 July 2019

 
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NEW: THE EUROPEAN CINEMA CHARTS

 
MEDIA Salles has recently begun publishing the European Cinema Charts, cartograms and inter-active maps which make it possible to compare indicators internationally, whilst facilitating a view of the relations between different phenomena, as well as making the data more immediately readable.
 

Added Content: Country Focuses
If you click on the green countries, you will find the "Country focus" drawn up by MEDIA Salles.

(Per leggere il testo in italiano cliccare qui)

 

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.
 
Country
Site
Town
No. of screens
No. of digital screens
The Netherlands
Pathé Spuimarkt
The Hague
9
9

Pathé Spuimarkt, The Hague
by Elisabetta Brunella

It's the afternoon of Sunday 7th July, in the Hague: in just over an hour's time the final of the women's football World Cup will start, with the Dutch team playing the United States. Vera and Riccardo are a classic, twenty-first-century couple: she is Dutch, from Leeuwarden, he is Italian from Vigolo Vattaro - to put it briefly Trento - and they met at the University of Twente, where he was studying for his master's degree. Today both support the team of the "orange lionesses" - cela va sans dire. And where will they watch the decisive game? On the big screen at the Pathé Spuimarkt, the nine-screen complex at the heart of the city, only a stone's throw from the seat of government. At five euros each they have just secured two of the last four seats still available and can now share their thrills, fears and - they hope - joy with many other spectators, who have chosen one of the Pathé Special programmes - Sport. It is by far the most popular "screening" on this sunny, summer afternoon: for the films that begin around the same time - from Aladdin and Men in Black: International, both in 3D, to Toy Story 4, there are from 138 to 217 free seats left. Today so-called "added content" or "cinema events" are going strong!
In fact, Pathé offers them on a regular basis, creating "seasons": at the moment it’s the turn of pop music with a cycle that starts with "The Cure anniversary" (11/07) and ends with "Live tribute to the Beatles" (31/08).
ut for those with more classical taste there is also the Dutch idol André Rieu: at the end of July Pathé cinemas will be presenting "Shall we dance?", the 2019 version of the traditional concert from Maastricht.
In the months between 2019 and 2020 live ballet from the Bolshoi and live opera from the New York Metropolitan have already been announced.
And while Vera and Riccardo watch the game on a screen that is 300 times bigger than the one they have at home, we stroll round the cinema. It is one of three that Pathé - leader on the Dutch market, with a total of 26 venues - owns in the Hague, together with the Buitenhof, again in the city centre, and the Scheveningen, situated in the neighbourhood of the same name on the North Sea coast. In the latter entertainment and tourist centre, Pathé offers 4DX, the system that makes it possible to sense the movement of the action on screen, thanks to moving seats. But the Spuimarkt complex, too, is a technological jewel: it is one of the six Pathé cinemas fitted with Imax screens. Right now, the films that can be watched with this technology, which uses the laser projector, are: Super - Man: far from home, Lion King, Fast and furious: Hobbs and Shaw.
Technology then, but with customer services: the Pathé Spuimarkt offers screenings for women, with "branded" goodies bags, as well as the "dinner and cinema" formula. In collaboration with nine local restaurants, the cinema sells a packet including a three-course dinner and cinema ticket (which normally costs 11 euros) at 24.50 euros.
Meanwhile the game is over: Holland has lost three-nil. The fans/spectators leave the cinema a little downcast. But the exhibitor, at least, will be happy that all the tickets sold out!

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WOMEN IN DIGITAL CINEMA

MLuz Delgado
Manager Cines Van Dyck,
Salamanca, Spain

MLuz DelgadoWhen I was asked to write about Digital Cinema for this column, as a woman, I realised that I had never had a perspective of gender because I have always worked in our own company with my husband, Juan Heras. However, since being asked, I haven’t stopped reflecting on the role of women in our cinema, as almost 75% of the audience are women.
Why do we women have this passion to broaden our mind? Is it because we have inherited Eve’s curiosity, after having eaten the apple from the tree of knowledge? Is it because we are always asking questions in order to understand the world?  Is it because socialising and participating in cultural events makes us happier?

A friend of mine lent me the book "A Room of One's Own" about women and fiction. Virginia Woolf put her finger on it: A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. 90 years later, Yuval Noah Harari in "Sapiens" says "The truly unique trait of Sapiens is our ability to create and believe fiction" (Sapiens: women and men).
Our women are cultivated and financially independent, most of them without family commitments, they are free to do what they want, and cinema is the perfect venue to socialise and to share fictions with other cinemagoers about films, opera, theatre, ballet or art documentaries.
It’s a fact that, currently, adult and elderly women are keeping (classic?) culture alive. Also, some men, of course. We attend conferences, exhibitions, classical music concerts, theatre, or cinemas. The more cultural events we attend, the more cultivated and confident we are. And consequently, more and more demanding and selective in our criteria.
And it’s because of this wonderful digital era that we, as exhibitors, are able to keep up with their needs, constantly offering them not just movies, but also theatre, documentaries and ballet from around the world.
Do I have a feminine perspective when I am programming these contents? Probably. Would this programming be different if it was a man who did it? Certainly. The contents would probably be the same. But not the way of presenting them.

WE'RE HAPPY TO SHARE ...
 

"Giro dei cinema" (a Tour of Cinemas): second edition

Luca Curtoni and Elena De Stefani will be visiting more independent cinemas in Italy.
The key figures of the 2019 "Giro dei Cinema":
4,000 kms - 35 days - 25 cinemas - 11 regions - 4 presentations of the book based on the first edition of the "Giro".

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Giro dei cinema
 

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