Estonian films are expectedto double their market share of the local box office to 10%, with over 120,000tickets being sold for national productions this year.

Speaking to ScreenDaily.com at this year's Baltic Event, the Estonian FilmFoundation's information manager Eda Koppel explained that the Estonian-Latvianco-production Lotte From Gadgetville is the top local release with more than 53,000 admissions posted todate. This makes it more successful than 2005's top film Harry Potter AndThe Goblet Of Fire, which had sold46,416 tickets. (he feature-length animation Lotte is being handled internationally by Sola Media andwill be released theatrically in Germany by MFA after February's Berlinale.

The other top Estonianreleases this year include Katrin Laur's Estonian-Finnish-German children'sfilm Ruudi (39,299 admissions),Jueri Sillart's Golden Beach(9,000), and Elmo Nueganen's Mindless (6,372). In total, there have been eight Estonian feature filmspremiering in the cinemas in 2006, including the Finnish-Chinese-Dutch-Estonianco-production Jade Warrior byAntti-Jussi Annila, Laila Pakalnina's Latvian-Estonian-Slovenian co-production TheHostage and Veiko Ounpuu's short Empty.

The last time the Estoniancinema's market share reached such heights was in 2002 when Elmo Nueganen'shistorical epic drama Names In Marble broke all box-office records with takings of $717, 360 (Euros 540,000)and the domestic market share was 9.7%.

In 2005, though, there hadbeen a downturn in admissions and box office takings for both local andinternational films, Rene Vilbre's Mat The Cat being the most successful Estonian title with 29,863admissions and Kaaren Kaer's Men At Arms (Malev) in second place with 14,637 tickets sold.