2010 was “a year of mixed results” for cinema attendance in Europe, according to provisional figures collated by the Strasbourg-based European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO).

Admissions decreased in 11 of the 23 EU markets such as Germany (-13.5%) Spain (-11.7%) and the UK (-2.4%), while there were increases in the other 12 markets, with Italy posting the most significant year-on-year growth of 11% and reaching the highest level since1987. France’s 2.7% increase brought its admissions total to 206.5m, the highest since 1967.

The EAO estimates that total admissions in the European Union dropped by 2.0% to around 961 million tickets sold.

 At the same time, there was no general pattern for the national success of European films in their home markets. National market shares decreased in 13 and increased in 10 of the 23 EU member states, with the Czech Republic and Italy being particularly strong.

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