19/04/2007

Empties [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Jan Sverák continues its record-breaking pace in the Czech box office. While continuing to dominate the weekly charts the film passed the 700,000 total admissions mark this week, making it the most successful title of the year so far.

Empties tells the tragicomic story of Josef, a retired teacher trying to confront ghosts of old age by getting a new job in a supermarket. Jan’s father Zdenek Sverák wrote the script and plays the main character.

Two light European comedies have also been doing well at the Czech Box Office this week. UK filmmaker Steve Bendelack’s Mr Bean’s Holiday [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is at number two and Taxi 4 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by France’s Gérard Krawczyk at number three.

A Czech film, Kisses [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Karin Babinská, is in at five. The only Hollywood production in the top five is the worldwide hit 300 by Zack Snyder, at number four.

Empties has taken over at top spot of the year-round box office by Jirí Menzel’s adaptation of Bohumil Hrabal’s novel I Served the King of England [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which currently stands at 674, 589 admissions.

Industry experts believe that the Sveráks’ film could be on course to break the country’s so-called multiplex era record, which belongs to another Jan Sverák film, Dark Blue World (Tmavomodry svet) with 1.2 million admissions in 2001. Empties already broke the all-time opening weekend box office record for a domestic film with 107,362 admissions on the weekend of March 8 and the record for a single day’s attendance, when it drew in 41,955 filmgoers on March 10.

The €1.2m film was co-produced with British outfit Portobello Pictures and TV NOVA and is distributed by is Falcon.