Turkish blockbusters hit it big in Europe

According to Dassonville, the performance of “Kutsal Damacana 2” is not a one-off event. Kinepolis, which has a market share of 45 percent and is by far the biggest Belgian movie theater group, started screening Turkish films in 2003. The real blockbuster success came in 2004 and 2005 with a revival of the “Hababam Sınıfı” (Hababam Class) series -- a renowned series of comedies dating back to the 1970s about a high school class of pranksters in no rush to graduate. In the few weeks that they ran, the family comedies attracted over 40,000 visitors each, outperforming a fair amount of Belgian movies. “That was a real eye-opener for us, and we first realized the commercial potential of Turkish cinema,” Dassonville explained.

Ever since, the commercial success of Turkish movies at Kinepolis has only increased. “Two years ago, you could find about one film from Turkey in our cinemas; nowadays we release a new Turkish movie every two weeks,” Dassonville said.

According to Dassonville, the reasons for this remarkable rise are twofold: “First of all, there is a big demand from the Turkish expat community in Belgium for movies from their mother country. Turkish movies also draw a large number of people with no or very little marketing. They don’t need it because mouth-to-mouth advertising does the trick. Secondly, the film distribution from Turkey has improved, with more distributors and a European-wide organized network. That makes it much easier than before to acquire Turkish movies.”

Family comedies

Turkish cinema’s increased popularity is not only confined to Belgium. In other European countries with large Turkish communities, Turkish expats show up in droves for movies from their mother country. In Germany, which has the largest Turkish community in the EU, the number of Turkish film releases has more than doubled in just four years’ time. According to figures from the German Federal Film Board (FFA), five films from Turkey made it to German movie theaters in 2004. Four years later, 11 Turkish movies were released in Germany, outracing big European film producers such as Spain. Currently, only the US, UK and France release more films in Germany than Turkey does.

In the Netherlands, home to 300,000 people of Turkish origin, Turkish cinema is also rapidly achieving commercial success. In 2006, only four films produced in Turkey made it to Dutch movie screens, attracting less than 10,000 visitors in total, according to statistics of the Dutch Association of Cinema Operators (NVB). Last year, that number had risen to no less than 23 Turkish movies and 159,430 patrons.

Family comedies prove an especially big hit in European cinemas. The most successful Turkish movie of all times in Europe is “Recep İvedik 2,” a popular comedy about the adventures of a fearsome-looking uncultivated driver. In 2008, the first installment of the “Recep İvedik” series drew more than 315,000 visitors to German cinemas. Last year, “Recep İvedik 2” was the uncrowned champion of Turkish films in Belgium and Holland, attracting almost 70,000 movie fans to Dutch theaters.

“A night out at the movies is a real family event for Turkish people living in Belgium, hence the success of such movies,” Dassonville explained. “Last Wednesday, we released the third part in the “Recep İvedik” series, and we have high hopes that it will be another Turkish blockbuster, with more than 40,000 viewers,” Dassonville said. Thanks to the growing commercial success, Turkey is now the largest movie provider for Kinepolis after films from other EU countries and the US.

France lags behind

Katja Kemler, press officer at Kinostar Theater GmbH, the biggest European distributor of Turkish films, puts the boost in European releases of Turkish movies down to the growing number of Turkish film productions: “The last couple of years, the amount of movies that come out of Turkey has drastically gone up. We started distributing Turkish films only in the end of 2007, at the request of a few Turkish production firms who wanted to penetrate the European market with their films,” Kemmler said to Sunday’s Zaman.

Kinostar, which distributes Turkish blockbusters such as the “Recep İvedik” series in eight different European countries, hasn’t regretted its choice. In 2008, the German-based firm released five Turkish movies -- by 2009 that number had already risen to 11. “This year, there are already five releases planned by the end of March, so 2010 also looks promising. Turkish movies are a very good market for us,” Kemmler said.

Only in France, home to the second-largest group of expats from Turkey, has Turkish cinema not seemed to have gained a foothold in the market, with no clear upward trend. The most popular Turkish movie of the past five years was “Uzak” (Distant), which attracted more than 143,000 visitors to French cinemas in 2004, according to data from the French National Center of Cinematography (CNC). Since then, no other Turkish film has been able to repeat that box office success, and in 2008 only three movies from Turkey made their way to French movie theaters, with an average audience of 13,000 each.