ABOUT
LUMIERE is a free database which provides a systematic compilation of available data on annual admissions to films released in European cinemas since 1996. Admissions data comes from a wide variety of sources, including national film agencies and statistics offices, distributors’ and exhibitors’ associations and inter-industry bodies. This is supplemented and completed by data from the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union on the basis of the declarations made by distributors to its Automatic Distribution Support scheme.
Purpose and scope
LUMIERE is primarily aimed at providing information on the theatrical performance of individual films in Europe. Our database is not intended as a tool to create and extract rankings of films based on their country of origin. Due to copyright restrictions from our data providers, the number of results available when you do a search based on producing countries is limited to 200 films.
Data reliability
The Observatory collects data from what it considers to be the most reliable data sources in each territory. However, there can be significant differences in the coverage rates among individual markets and / or years. All data should be thus considered minimum estimates.
Furthermore, the Observatory is in no position to verify the accuracy of the data provided by the various third-party data sources. Neither the Observatory nor its third-party sources can warrant that the data provided is free of errors, omissions or other inaccuracies.
Identification of the producing countries in LUMIERE
Defining the nationality of a film is a complex task. There are no widely accepted international or even European definitions of the criteria to determine the country of origin of a film. This is both a legal and a statistical problem. Different national records and the statistics on which they are based can show the same film as having a whole range of nationalities.
Adopting a pragmatic approach, the Observatory considers as the country of origin of a specific film the country out of which the film is financed. In the case of international co-productions, the film is assigned to the country which provides the majority share of production financing. The Observatory tries to list all co-producing countries in the order of their financial investment in the film (whether known or assumed), with the country having provided the majority financial investment in the production in first place.
Producer countries in LUMIERE are identified based on a range of information sources. As the Observatory does not have access to detailed production information on films, it does not claim correct identification in every case, and it occasionally revises its attribution when further information becomes available. Users noticing any inaccurate origin allocation for a specific film are invited to contact the Observatory team.
"INC" films
Some European feature films in LUMIERE are labelled with an “inc” marker, which appears next to the first production country. This indicator stands for "incoming investment" and is used when a film meets the following criteria:
(i) is (co-)produced by a European-based production company (or special purpose vehicle) and
(ii) is substantially backed by a US major studio (e.g., in terms of financing and/or distribution) and
(iii) has a strong cultural “European” character (referring to a specific the country of origin rather than Europe as a whole).
The EUR inc marker is used to tag films that are produced in Europe but are ultimately financed from outside Europe and distributed by a global major, hence resembling a global studio title rather than a “typical” European film.