The Sapphires marks a great year for Indigenous screen stories

The Sapphires was the top grossing Australian feature film at the local box office in 2012, taking $14.5 million. This significant milestone marks another great year for Indigenous screen stories and the film's director Wayne Blair in particular. Blair was also a director and principal cast member in this year's standout drama series, Redfern Now, which achieved a national average of more than one million people on ABC.

In addition to its local success, the international accolades have come thick and fast for The Sapphires with screenings at Cannes, Toronto, Telluride, London and Busan film festivals. This critical acclaim builds on a strong presence over the last few years with screenings of Toomelah and Samson & Delilah at Cannes, Bran Nue Dae and Mad Bastards at Sundance and the upcoming release of Satellite Boy which has screened at Toronto and will soon be featured at Berlin. The 2013 Berlinale will also feature a major focus on Indigenous cinematic storytelling with films selected to screen from Warwick Thornton, Ivan Sen and Erica Glynn.

The success of The Sapphires, and Indigenous screen stories more broadly, is something we can all be very proud of and is a testament to the role of Screen Australia's Indigenous Department which has been supporting projects and filmmakers for over a decade, said Screen Australia's Chief Executive, Ruth Harley.

Furthermore, series 2 of Redfern Now has been commissioned and the new ABC series The Gods of Wheat Street will screen later this year. Combined with feature films Mystery Road (Ivan Sen), The Darkside (Warwick Thornton) and Charlie's Country (Rolf de Heer and David Gulpilil) all in production, we are set for a big 2013 for Indigenous stories.

In 2012, Australian films at the box office took $47.9 million at local cinemas, accounting for a 4.3 per cent domestic share. Audiences clearly wanted to laugh this year with comedies performing particularly well. Happy Feet Two followed The Sapphires with $8.2 million, taking its total box office to $10.7 million when including its earnings from 2011. Kath & Kimderella ($6.1 million), A Few Best Men ($5.3 million) and Mental ($4.1 million) rounded out the top five.

Another achievement this year was the development of our interactive widget which helps everyone stay in touch with how our feature films are performing at both the cinema and on television. It is updated weekly and monthly and can be found on our site as well as in our trivia app Are You Buff Enough? and can also be embedded into your own site. I encourage you all to take a look, play the game and continue to get behind our screen stories, concluded Dr Harley.

To find out more about Are You Buff Enough? visit: www.buffenough.com.au

Summary of 2012 box office by country of origin In 2012, the Australian box office topped the billion dollar mark for the fourth consecutive year with a gross of $1,125.5 million. There were 548 films screened of which 43 were Australian productions. Together, Australian titles accounted for $47.9 million or 4.3 per cent of total earnings.

Annual box office Australian films, 2003-2012:

Source: Compiled by Screen Australia from Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (MPDAA) data.

Australia US UK ROW Total

No. Titles 43 231 63 211 548

Share of titles 7.8% 42.2% 11.5% 38.5% 100.0%

Total box office $47.9m $892.4m $115.3m $69.9m $1.13bn

Box office share 4.3% 79.3% 10.2% 6.2% 100.0%

Source: Compiled by Screen Australia from Motion Picture Association of Australia (MPDAA) data. Notes: Data includes all films screening, 420 releases from 2012 and 108 from previous years. Box office is based on 2012 earning only.

Summary of first release titles in 2012 by release strategy The release strategy is defined by the number of opening day prints and is seen as providing the most appropriate indication of a distributor's assessment of initial demand for a film.

In 2012, there were 548 films that reported box office, of which 421 screened for the first time in Australian cinemas that year. The majority of earnings came from films released on more than 200 screens, with 18 per cent of first release titles issued across Wide (200 399 prints) and Blockbuster (400+ prints) categories. Together these films accounted for 84 per cent of first release earnings.

In contrast, most Australian films are released with either a Limited (up to 20 prints) or Speciality (20 99 prints) strategy. In 2012, more than half of the first release titles premiered on less than 20 prints.

By release strategy

Country of origin Limited (0-19 prints) Speciality (20-99 prints) Mainstream (100-199 prints) Wide

(200-300 prints) Blockbuster (400+

prints)

Australia No. Titles 15 4 2 6 0

Share of titles 6.8% 4.3% 5.6% 10.9% 0.0%

Total box office $2.3m $2.2m $2.0m $32.5m $0.0m

Box office share 9.2% 3.5% 2.4% 6.8% 0.0%

US No. Titles 40 40 27 47 17

Share of titles 18.3% 43.5% 75.0% 85.5% 89.5%

Total box office $4.5m $27m $61.6m $402.0m $357.3m

Box office share 17.9% 42% 74.3% 84.6% 87.5%

UK No. Titles 24 15 6 1 2

Share of titles 11.0% 16.3% 16.7% 1.8% 10.5%

Total box office $1.7 $10.7m $12.7m $21.4m $50.9m

Box office share 6.7% 16.6% 15.2% 4.5% 12.5%

Rest of World No. Titles 140 33 1 1 0

Share of titles 63.9% 35.9% 2.8% 1.8% 10.5%

Total box office $16.6m $24.4m $6.7m $19.3m $0.0m

Box office share 66.3% 37.9% 8.0% 4.1% 0.0%

Total No. Titles 219 92 36 55 19

Total box office $25.0m $64.1m $83.0m $475.3m $408.2m

Source: Compiled by Screen Australia from Motion Picture Association of Australia (

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