The Danish box office is demonstrating that festival success is not the only route to success for locally-made films.

Though Berlin-darling Italian For Beginners is still in 7th place after 19 weeks on release and has now scored some 830,000 admissions, other home-grown films like the comedy Flickering Lights (440,000), the

family-film Flying Granny (240,000) and the realistic drama The Bench

(180,000) have been able to score despite tough blockbuster competition from The Emperor's New Groove (217,000), Hannibal (169,000) and Chocolat (57,000).

Over the first three months local films have scooped 1.1 million admissions compared with a total of two million for the whole of 2000. Denmark's veteran film-maker Bille August's acclaimed Swedish-language drama, A Song For Martin, which secured him his best reviews of the last decade in Denmark and Sweden, has achieved a modest 60,000 admissions in 4 weeks after a good opening.

Soren Fauli's comic feature debut Count Axel, however, has met hard competition from Sandra Bullock-starrer Miss Congeniality and especially the re-release of The Exorcist. Count Axel failed to make the

number one spot and has scooped 36,000 admissions in 2 weeks.

The upward trend for local has mirrored in neighbouring Norway, Sweden and Finland, although admissions across the Nordic region

saw a slight drop last year.

Danish box-office 2000:

DENMARK TOP 10 2000

Title (origin)Distributor Box office

1 Toy Story 2 (US) BVIDKK 21,218,656

2 Gladiator (US) UIPDKK 20,500,546

3 The Sixth Sense (US) SF-FilmDKK 18,659,188

4 American Beauty (US) UIPDKK 18,425,276

5 Flickering Lights (US) UIP/ScanboxDKK 16,668,515

6 Mission: Impossible 2 (US UIPDKK 15,839,176

7 Help! I'm A Fish (Den-Swe) Egmont EntertainmentDKK 15,241,090

8 American Pie (US) Sandrew MetronomeDKK 11,967,294

9 Scary Movie (US) Egmont EntertainmentDKK 11,330,093

10 Stuart Little (US) Egmont EntertainmentDKK 10,109,285

DENMARK INDEPENDENT TOP 10 2000

Title (origin)Distributor Box office

1 The Sixth Sense (US )SF-Film DKK 18,659,188

2 Flickering Lights (Den) UIP/Scanbox DKK 16,668,515

3 Help! I'm A Fish (Den-Swe) Egmont Entertainment DKK 15,241,090

4 American Pie (US) Sandrew Metronome DKK 11,967,294

5 Scary Movie (US) Egmont Entertainment DKK 11,330,093

6 Erin Brockovich (US) Egmont EntertainmentDKK 10,506,820

7 Stuart Little (US) Egmont EntertainmentDKK 10,109,285

8 Me, Myself & Irene (US) Egmont EntertainmentDKK 9,596,190

9 Dancer In The Dark (Den-Swe) Angel FilmsDKK 9,553,781

10 Break Your Bounds (US) Sandrew MetronomeDKK 9,272,163