Small European Film Markets: Portraits and Comparisons

Reception

By Jakob Isak Nielsen

This section considers the ‘film make’ (i.e. live-action or animation) and genre profiles of the top performing titles from the CresCine markets. The section compares the total repertoire of films produced to the top performing national titles in the domestic market and the top performing national titles in international markets. The admissions data is based on Lumiere Pro.

Comparing the repertoire of films produced (see: Production volume) to the films that perform well theatrically in the domestic as well as international markets reveals a number of interesting patterns. First, there is a disparity between the total repertoire of films in CresCine markets compared to the top performing CresCine titles (including both domestic and international admissions). In other words, the top-performing titles have a different profile than the overall output of films.

Unsurprisingly, fiction feature films outperform documentaries in terms of admissions relative to their share of the total output of feature films in the 2014-2022 period. There is one documentary film in the top 50 films with the highest admissions in international markets and none in the top 50 films with the highest admissions in domestic markets. However, the top-performing films also stand out from the total repertoire in terms of production type (100% national productions versus majority co-productions), ‘film make’ (live-action versus animation) and genre mix. Second, there is a disparity regarding top performing titles internationally versus domestically. The clearest disparities relate to those films that do well internationally versus the total repertoire of feature films in the seven markets, but at the level of the individual markets other interesting genre disparities also emerge. The following section highlights these differences.

When considering top-performing films from all seven markets combined (2014-2022), the focus is on the top 50 films. Looking at individual markets the focus is on the top 20 films.

Looking at the top 50 titles domestically and internationally reveals several interesting patterns. First, the two lists have very little overlap. In fact, only 10 films are on both lists and only one film is among the top 20 on both lists – Druk (DK, SE, NL 2020) – which is among the few films that had a highly successful run in domestic cinemas while also reaching substantial international audiences. Calvary (IE, GB 2014) also did well domestically and internationally although for the particular year of 2014, admissions data for Ireland and the UK are combined making it difficult to determine how many of its half million admissions were in Ireland.

Second, the ratio of majority co-productions to 100% national productions is remarkably different. The ratio of national to majority co-productions among all CresCine feature fiction films (2014-2022) is approximately 2:1. This matches the ratio of 100% national to majority co-productions among the 50 films with the highest domestic admissions. Since the animated documentary Flugt (DK, SE, NO, FR, US, ES, IT, GB 2021) is the only documentary film in the top 50 lists (the top 50 internationally), the share of 100% national and majority co-productions among top-performing titles is compared to the same share regarding the feature fiction film output in total. Sixteen out of the 50 top-performing titles in domestic markets are majority co-productions. However, this is inverse to the top-performing CresCine titles in international markets where 36 out of the top 50 are majority co-productions and only 14 are 100% national titles. There is also a clear tendency for co-productions to do well in markets that are co-production partners. These collaborative patterns are traced in more detail elsewhere (Film Export: Comparing CresCine & Large Markets).

By Jakob Isak Nielsen

Another striking characteristic is the performance of animation films relative to the limited number of animation productions. Numerically, animation films in the domestic top 50 resemble the share of animation films in the total output of feature fiction films (2014-2022). However, the only two animation films in the domestic top 50 – Ternet Ninja (DK 2017) and Ternet Ninja II (DK, US 2020) – are the best and second-best selling films of all in CresCine markets (2014-22) in terms of domestic admissions. The Danish Film Institute acknowledges animation’s rising role in attracting families to the cinema but domestic animation films have also done well in their home markets in Estonia and Flanders. Domestic animation films have more modest admissions numbers in their domestic markets in Lithuania and Ireland in the 2014-2022 period whereas they have until very recently been largely missing for Portugal and Croatia, two markets that have struggled most with low domestic market shares. However, the recent domestic box office success of Cvrčak i mravica (HR 2023) – the first children-and-family-oriented Croatian feature animation film since 2012 – demonstrates that children-and-family-oriented animation films can be one way to (re)connect with local audiences.

Notwithstanding the importance of animation films in the domestic theatrical market, the more striking feature is their success in international markets. Sixteen out of the top 50 international titles are animation films, including the animated documentary film Flugt (DK, SE, NO, FR, US, ES, IT, GB 2021). No fewer than half of the top 10 films in terms of international admissions are animation films. The key explanation is the international success of animation films from Belgian nWave pictures (e.g. Robinson Crusoe, The Queen’s Corgi and Bigfoot Family), Irish Cartoon Saloon (e.g. Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers and The Breadwinner) and Danish animation films spread out across a handful of production companies. The aggregated admissions of the top five animation films are close to 19 million – close to 22.5 million if all the animation films in the top 50 are aggregated. Had the CresCine sample included Belgium instead of only Flanders these number would have been even more pronounced.

International co-productions are also common among the top-performing animation films – particularly for Ireland and Flanders. Collaborative partners from larger markets suggest that these help to establish gateways to international markets both within and outside of Europe (see Film Export: Comparing CresCine & Large Markets). There is also substantial collaboration with other small countries – even across CresCine markets Ireland, Denmark, Flanders, Estonia and Lithuania.

The international success of animation films from these markets is not an entirely new phenomenon. A few films from these markets reached more than 1 million international admissions earlier in the millennium, such as Ben Stassen’s 38-minute Haunted Castle (VL, US 2001), Hjælp, jeg er en fisk (DK, DE, IE 2000), and The Ugly Duckling and Me! (DK, DE, FR, IE 2006). Yet, the turning point came in 2008 with nWave’s Fly Me to the Moon (VL, US 2008), the first of many internationally successful nWave animation films released regularly since then. As with Ugly Duckling and Fly Me to the Moon, many of the films clearly associate themselves with or base their stories on internationally recognized popular cultural phenomena, such as H.C. Andersons fairy tale ‘The Ugly Duckling’ (1843), Bart Howard’s song ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ (1954), Bigfoot, Elizabeth II’s life-long association with Pembroke Welsh Corgis, and Daniel Defoe’s literary classic Robinson Crusoe (1719). Stassen has also declared in interviews that the key audience of nWave productions is international audiences. Lumiere Pro reports close to 2 million admissions for Fly Me to the Moon in North America and close to 1 million for Robinson Crusoe but nWave’s productions generally have the highest admissions in Europe, followed by Asia and Latin America.

A 2014 report by the EAO (Kanzler 2014) on the theatrical circulation of European children’s films found that live-action children’s films circulate equally well as animated children’s films (p.18) – but this was not reflected in our sample. With the possible exception of the two Flemish K3-family films, K3 Dierenhotel (VL 2014, #35) and K3 Love Cruise (VL 2017, #41), there were no live-action children’s film among the 50 CresCine films that performed best in international markets.

By Jakob Isak Nielsen

Outside of the realm of children and family-oriented animation films, several characteristics can be highlighted when summing up the profile of the top-performing films in international markets. The stronger share of co-productions amid films that perform well in international markets aligns with the strongly transnational characteristics of these productions more broadly. This concerns the composition of cast and crew, setting, languages spoken, as well as the specific themes and storylines of the films themselves. One example is Greta (IE, US 2018), directed by Neil Jordan but set in New York City and starring French Isabelle Huppert and American Chloë Grace Moretz.

The characters, cast, settings and storylines of a fair share of these films are not strongly anchored culturally in the market in which they are produced. Some are more anchored in a specific non-domestic culture, e.g. the US as in The Salvation (DK, GB, ZA 2014), The Neon Demon (DK, US, FR 2016), The House that Jack Built (DK, FR, DE, SE 2018) or the abovementioned Greta. Others are more unspecified such as Room (IE, US, CA, GB 2015), or The Lobster (IE, FR, GB, NL, GR 2015), the latter directed by Greek Yorgos Lanthimos, starring actors from various nations, and set in unspecified locations (it was shot in Ireland). The list of top films sometimes begs the question, “is this really an Irish, Danish or Portuguese film?” Indeed, in many cases, the majority co-production assignation to one of the seven CresCine markets can certainly be questioned (see Export markets and international distribution).

Other characteristics include internationally recognized auteurs (e.g. Neil Jordan, Lars von Trier, Jim Sheridan, Thomas Vinterberg, Yorgos Lanthimos, Nicolas Winding Refn and Lukas Dhont) as well as internationally recognized actors (e.g. Brie Larson, Isabelle Huppert, Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Sally Hawkins, Ethan Hawke, Brendan Gleeson, Matt Dillon, and Mads Mikkelsen). A large section of the productions are also either in English and/or animation films dubbed into local languages in (close to) all international markets. Language appears to be a key parameter in other cases as well. The two Dutch language K3 films only exported to the Netherlands where both had close to the same admissions as in their domestic market. Lukas Dhont’s Dutch-French language Girl (BE, NL 2017) and French-Dutch language Close (BE, FR, NL 2022) also had the majority of their international admissions in France and the Netherlands. These cultural export patterns align with the cultural-linguistic proximity theory whereby cultural products are more likely to travel to markets with high geo-linguistic proximity (De Sola Pool, 1977; Straubhaar, 1991, 2007).

At the level of the individual market, there are also some disparities. Comparing the genre mix of the overall repertoire of films produced to the top 20 performing films domestically and internationally helps to illustrate different genre patterns in top-performing films in domestic markets versus international markets. In some markets, one or two documentary films appear in the top 20 – most often in terms of international admissions – but for the sake of comparability with the genre mix analysis of the total repertoire, only the top 20 fiction feature films are included. Animation films are included but the animation genre tag was left out, again for comparability and because film ‘make’ has already been covered (see Methodology: Genre).

A genre perspective on the top 20 films domestically and internationally suggests that certain genres ‘travel’ better internationally. Adventure, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, family and the broad category of drama stand out as performing better internationally than domestically. Also, genre hybridity comes across as an export factor given that there are a total of 272 genre tags for the top 20 performing films in international markets and only 212 genre tags for the top 20 performing films in international markets (a total of 140 films in each category, with some titles overlapping). Comedy, on the other hand, stands out as a genre that performs better in domestic markets than in international markets.

At the level of the individual markets there are disparities between domestic versus international top-performers as well. Nowhere is this clearer than in Portugal. Several genres (sci-fi, fantasy, war) only appear among the international top-performers. Several other genres only appear among domestic top-performers (thriller, mystery, biography, mystery, crime, action). And genres that appear among both domestic and international top-performers are unevenly distributed, with drama being export-oriented, romance and comedy being particularly popular domestically.

Comparing the genre mix of the overall repertoire of films produced to the top 20 performing films domestically and internationally also illustrates whether there is an alignment between the total repertoire of films produced and the particular genre mix of the top performing films. Briefly put, are the types of films produced aligned with the types of films that perform well internationally and domestically?

It was shown earlier that the drama tag represented close to half of the genre tags in Portugal’s feature film output (2014-2022); only 15% were comedy tags. However, comedies perform better than the output justifies, with four of the five top-performing domestic films being comedies as well as six out of the top eight films. O Pátio das Cantigas (PT 2015) was by far the most popular Portuguese film at the box office, followed by Curral de Moinas - Os Banqueiros do Povo (PT 2022) – both comedies. Also worth noting is that only two of the eight comedies had distribution outside of Portugal. The two that did had very few admissions internationally.

These types of comparisons become clearer if we compare the genre profile of the top 20 films from each of the markets to the overall output from said market across the 2014-2022 timespan. The first visualization pools all the genre tags together for the top 20 performing national films domestically and internationally in each of the seven markets and compares these two genre profiles to the genre profile of the total output of all films (893 films). The subsequent seven visualizations show the genre profile of the total output of films from each of the markets and compares it to the genre profile of the top performing films from said market (top 20 films domestically and top 20 films internationally).

Comparing the top 20 performers from all the markets to the total repertoire highlights at least one significant observation: the drama tag appears significantly more often in the total output of films (38.8%) than it does among the top-performing films domestically (25.9%) as well as internationally (29.5%). Furthermore, the number of drama tags include a range of Croatian and Portuguese films that made the top 20 international list despite having modest admission numbers. It begs the obvious question of whether the CresCine ecosystems are essentially over-producing dramas and should instead consider expanding to other genres?

Pooling all the films together also evens out disparities that are more visible at the level of the individual ecosystem: adventure, family and war films do better in Croatia than warranted by their modest share in the repertoire of Croatian films. Biopics and crime do considerably better than warranted by their modest share in the repertoire of Danish films. In Estonia, history and action do considerably better than warranted by their modest share in the repertoire of Estonian films. In Ireland, adventure films rank higher among the top performing films than in the total share of the repertoire. In Flanders, this is the case for family films.

Portugal is not the only market where comedy performs better domestically than warranted by the genre’s share of the repertoire. This is also the case in Denmark and Lithuania, and to a more limited extent in the other four markets. In Lithuania this is the case even though it has the highest percentage of comedy tags in the total output of films among these markets. Romance does well in Lithuania both domestically as well as internationally, whereas adventure stands out as a genre that fares particularly well in international markets. There are other examples of disparity not highlighted here that can be pursued by looking closer at the visualizations and singling out specific genres for comparison.

By Marius Øfsti

This section considers the recognition of CresCine feature films at selected festivals, as well as the European Film Awards and the Academy Awards. Festivals were selected using the Swedish Film Institute’s list of festivals and awards that are a part of their “quality index” calculation. (See methodology Festivals for details.) The festivals considered in this section are Annecy, Busan, Berlin, Cannes, IDFA, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Rotterdam, San Sebastián, Sundance, Telluride, Toronto, Tribeca, and Venice. The SFI quality index also considers London Film Festival, Cinekids, and CPH:DOX, but we were unable to collect data on participation and awards London Film Festival and Cinekids for the whole time period. CPH:DOX was excluded to avoid having a festival based in one of the seven CresCine markets due to possible skewing of the results. Only features with 2014 to 2022 as year of production and a theatrical release in Europe are considered.

The following section first analyses the number of nominations and awards from these festivals. Subsequently, festival recognition is analyzed using the SFI scoring system. For brevity, nominations is used in the following to refer to nominations at festivals and award ceremonies, as well as participation in non-competitive festival sections. Independent awards, such as the Queer Palm in Cannes, are counted among the awards but not towards the SFI score. All awards for fiction and documentary feature films are counted irrespective of award category.

From 2014 to 2022, Danish films received 173 nominations and 41 awards in total from the festivals and awards ceremonies considered. Ireland received 96 nominations and nine awards. Portugal and Flanders followed with 69 awards and nine awards, and 67 nominations and ten awards. Lithuania, Croatia, and Estonia received 26, 21 and 18 nominations respectively. However, while Lithuanian films received two awards and Estonia films one, Croatian films received five awards. Thus, Croatia and Denmark had the highest awards-to-nominations ratio of all Crescine markets, with 20%.

These figures do not take the production volume of each industry into account. Ireland saw the highest share of features in festivals with 32%, followed by Denmark at 29% and Flanders at 21%. Despite the high number of total nominations, only 13% of Portuguese films received a nomination, compared to 17% of Croatian and 14% of Lithuanian films. Estonian films had the lowest share of nominations at 9%.

Films from all CresCine markets except Estonia were selected for all the top three European festivals, Berlin, Cannes, and Venice. One Estonian film was selected for Berlin and one for Venice, but none for Cannes. Denmark had the highest number of top three festival participations with 28, half of those were from Berlin. A total of 21 Portuguese titles were selected, nine of those participated in Cannes — equaling Denmark. Flanders and Ireland saw 13 and 12 titles in these festivals, while Lithuanian and Croatia had six and five titles respectively. Flemish films had the highest number of awards from the top three festivals with seven, six of those from Cannes.

In the American festivals, Sundance, Toronto, Telluride, and Tribeca, 48 Danish and 47 Irish titles were selected. 21 Flemish and 13 Portuguese films participated in North American festival, while. Estonian, Lithuanian, and Croatian titles were represented four, three and two times respectively. In terms of awards at American festivals, Denmark was the highest grossing market with a total of 13 wins, eight of which were from Tribeca and four from Sundance. The only other CresCine markets to win awards at American festivals were Ireland and Flanders, with two and one award from Toronto.

Among the other European festivals, Karlovy Vary, Rotterdam, San Sebastián, and Locarno, Portuguese films received 26 nominations and Danish films 25. Flemish films received 14 nominations, Estonian films nine and films from Croatia, Lithuania, and Ireland all participated in 10 festivals. Karlovy Vary was an important festival for all CresCine industries but in particular for Estonia with eight titles selected. San Sebastián was very important for Portuguese films, with 15 nominations, while Rotterdam only selected two Danish and one Flemish title from all the CresCine markets. The only Asian festival examined, Busan, selected three Portuguese and two Danish titles, as well as one each from Ireland, Lithuania, and Flanders. Portuguese films won five awards at Locarno, while Croatian films received three and Lithuanian films one. Danish films received four awards at San Sebastián and Flemish films one. Danish films also won two awards at Rotterdam and one in Busan.

Of the specialist festivals, the documentary festival IDFA was more important for the CresCine films than the animation festival Annecy. This was mainly due to a total of 35 Danish films participating in IDFA. Five Lithuanian titles also participated at IDFA, with all other markets following with three, or in the case of Lithuania, two. Only five CresCine films participated at Annecy, one each from Denmark, Flanders and Croatia, and two from Portugal. The latter were both from 2022, and the only feature length Portuguese animation films produced in the period. Danish films received three awards from IDA and one from Annecy, while one Estonian film received an award from IDFA. No other CresCine industries received awards from these festivals.

Danish and Irish films received nine and eight Academy Awards nominations, while Flemish films were nominated once. Danish films also received the most European Film Awards nominations with 25, while Irish films received 14 and Flemish films 13. Lithuanian, Croatian, and Portuguese films received one European Film Awards each, while no Estonian were nominated for either. Irish and Danish films also received one Academy Award each. In the European Film Awards, Danish films won 11 awards, Irish films four and Lithuanian, Portuguese, and Flemish films won one award each.

The SFI quality index awards points on a scale from 0.5 to 2 points based on participation, nominations, and awards. Of the collected festivals, 0.5 points is awarded for participation in IDFA (side section), Rotterdam (side sections), Telluride, Tribeca and TIFF Kids. No additional points can be awarded from these festivals. 1 point is awarded for participation in Cannes (Cannes Classics, Critics’ Week, Directors’ Fortnight), Berlin (Panorama, Forum, Generation, Berlinale Special), Venice (Orrizonti, Critics’ Week, Venice Days, Venice Classics), Annecy, Busan, Locarno, Rotterdam (main competition), San Sebastián, Sundance, Toronto, and IDFA (main competition). 1.5 point is awarded for Cannes (Competition, Un Certain Regard), Berlin (Competition), and Venice (Competition). Titles can achieve 1.5 point from multiple nominations and awards at 1 point festivals, and 2 points from awards at 1.5 festivals, Academy Awards nominations or multiple European Film Awards nominations. No title can get points from more than one category.

Overall, Denmark ranked highest with a total of 88.5 points. Ireland, Portugal, and Flanders followed with 56.5, 43 and 35.5 points. Croatia scored 15 points, Lithuania scored 14.5 points, and Estonia 9.5 points. When production volume is considered, Irish features scored highest with an average of 0.32 points, followed by Danish features with 0.27 points on average and Flemish films with 0.2. Croatian films scored 0.15 points on average, slightly more than Portuguese at 0.13 and Lithuanian at 0.11. Estonian films also had the lowest average score of 0.05.

16 CresCine titles scored 2 points on the SFI scale. Of those, seven were Danish, five were Irish, three Flemish, and one was Croatian. The Lobster (IE, FR, GB, NL, GR 2015), which won Prix du Jury at Cannes, was the only Irish film to participate or win awards in a 1.5 point festival. All the other Irish films that received 2 points did so with participation in 1 point festivals and Academy Award nominations. Only Denmark and Portugal have titles scoring 1.5 points, with four each.

All markets have 1 point titles. Estonia has the fewest with four, while Croatia and Lithuania have 10 and 11 respectively. Denmark also scores the most 1 point titles with 53, followed by Ireland at 42, Portugal at 36, and Flanders at 26. Denmark also has the highest amount of 0.5 titles with 29, but Estonia is now number two with 11. Four titles are counted among the overall nominations and participations without receiving any points in the SFI system. These titles, one from Estonia, Lithuania, Portugal, and Flanders respectively, were all shown in non-competitive sections at Venice or Cannes.

The two most highly recognized titles from the CresCine markets from 2014 and 2022 were both Danish. Flugt (DK, SE, NO, FR, US, ES, IT, GB 2021), received 15 nominations and five awards. It scored 2 points from selections at Toronto, Sundance, Annecy, and Busan, Academy Award nominations for best documentary, best animation and best international feature film as well as two/three European Film Award nominations. It won the World Cinema Prize for documentaries at Sundance, the Cristal d’Annecy for feature animation, as well as both best European Documentary and best European Animation at the European Film Awards. Druk (DK, SE, NL 2020) received 11 nominations and five awards. It scored 2 points from selection at Toronto and San Sebastián, two Academy Award nominations (directing and international feature), as well as six European Film Awards. It won an Oscar for best international feature, and European Film Awards for best film, best screenplay, best directing and best acting. Druk also won the Silver Shell for best actor at San Sebastián. Neither of these were screened in 1.5 category sections, but Druk was shown out of competition at Cannes. Two other Danish films, Holy Spider (DK, DE, FR, SE, JO, IT 2022) and The Look of Silence (DK, FI, ID, NO, GB 2015) won awards at 1.5 festivals, Holy Spider won best actress at Cannes while The Look of Silence won the Grand Jury Prize in Venice.

The Lobster, (IE, FR, GB, NL, GR 2015) by Greek director Yorgos Lathimos is the best performing Irish film at festivals, with ten nominations and four awards. The film scored 2 points from participation in the Cannes competition and winning Prix du Jury, as well as selections from Toronto and Locarno with six European Film Awards nominations. The second most recognized Irish title, Room (IE, US, CA, GB 2015) received eight nominations and two awards. It scored 2 points from selection at Toronto and four Academy Awards nominations, as well as two European Film Awards nominations. It won an Oscar for best actress in a leading role and the People's Choice’ award in Toronto. The other 2 point scoring Irish titles were all screened in 1 point festivals and nominated for an Academy Award. Of those two were animated features directed by Tomm Moore, Song of the Sea (IE, LU, BE, FR, DK 2014) and Wolfwalkers (IE, GB, LU, FR 2020).

Both the most recognized Flemish titles were directed by Lukas Dhont. Girl, (BE, NL 2018) scored 2 points from participating in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where it won Camera D’or and best actress, as well as from participation in Toronto and San Sebastián with four European Film Awards. In total, Girl received nine nominations and five awards. Close (BE, FR, NL 2022) scored 2 points from selection in the Cannes competition where it won Grand Prix, as well as six European Film Awards nominations and a nomination for best international feature at the Academy Awards. Close (BE, FR, NL 2022) received ten nominations and two awards. The third Flemish film to score 2 points in the SFI system was La Civil (BE, RO, MX 2021), which was also screened at Cannes, where it won the Prix du Courage in the Un Certain Regard Section. La Civil also participated in the Industry Selects section in Toronto.

Croatia had one title scoring 2 points in the SFI system, Zvizdan (HR, RS, SI 2015) which won Prix du Jury in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, and was also selected for Karlovy Vary. Of the films scoring 1 point, Sigurno mjesto (HR, 2022) was the most awarded with three awards in Locarno and a European Film Awards nomination, while Murina (HR, BR, US, SI 2021) was selected for Toronto and Directors’ Fortnight, where it also won Camera D’or. Other titles selected for side sections at the top three festivals were S one strane (HR, RS 2016) which participated in the Panorama section in Berlin, while Ne gledaj mi u pijat (HR, DK 2016) and Takva su pravila (HR, FR, RS, MK 2014) were in Venice Days and the Orizzonti section at Venice respectively.

Pedro Costas Vitalina Valera (PT 2019) scored 1.5 point from selection and awards at Toronto and Locarno. It was also screened out of competition at Cannes. Colo (PT, FR 2017) and Cartas da Guerra (PT 2016) were both screened in Berlin, while A Herdade (PT, FR 2019) was selected for both Venice and Toronto. Diamantio (PT, FR, BR 2018) scored 1 point, but equals Vitalina Valera with four nominations and two awards. Diamantino was selected for Cannes Critics’ week where it won the Grand Prize and the Queer Palm. It was also selected for Karlovy Vary and Toronto, and nominated for European Comedy at the European Film Awards.

Of the 11 Lithuanian titles that scored 1 point on the SFI scale, Mariupolis 2 (LT, FR, DE 2022) sticks out with five nominations and one award, European Documentary at the European Film Awards. Mariupolis 2 was selected for Toronto, Karlovy Vary, IDFA, as well as a special screening at Cannes. Mariupolis (LT, DE, FR, UA 2016) was selected for Berlin and IDFA, while Pilgrimai (LT 2018) was selected for the Orizzonti section of Venice. Director Sharunas Bartas had three films screened in Cannes, Peace to us in our dreams (LT, FR, RU 2015) and Serksnas (LT, FR, UA, PL 2017) were selected for Directors’ Fortnight and Au Crépuscule (In the Dusk) (LT, FR, LV, RS, CZ, PT 2020) was screened out of competition at Cannes in the Faithful section.

Only two Estonian films received more than one nomination. November (EE, NL, PL 2017) was selected for Karlovy Vary and Tribeca, while Immortal (EE 2019) was selected for Karlovy Vary and IDFA, where it also won the Special Jury Award for Mid-length documentary. Both these scored 0.5 points on the SFI scale. The Estonian films that scored 1 point were The Trial: The State of Russia vs. Oleg Sentsov (EE, PL, CZ, RU, UA 2017) which was selected for the Berlinale Special section, Risttuules (EE 2014) and Á Ferð með Mömmu (EE, IS 2022) which were both screened in Toronto, and Pretenders (EE, LV, LT 2016) which was selected for San Sebastián. Kõne taevast (EE, LT, KG, US, CN, 2022), directed by Korean Ki-Duk and released posthumously, was screened out of competition at Venice. It’s worth noting that Estonian Savvusanna sõsarad (EE, FR, IS 2023) would score 1.5 points with nominations and wins at both IDFA and Sundance if 2023 titles were included.