With the widest Finnish release of the year, Christmas Story has dominated the national box office. The family film led the field in its first weekend with 21.883 admissions from 60 screens, topping the previous front-runner, Disney hit Ratatouille (66 screens). In its second weekend, Christmas Story scored even better numbers, rising 19% — a move considered historical for a live-action family film. In less than two weeks in theatres, Christmas Story has pushed its total admissions to more than 65.000, encouraging the Scandinavian distributor Sandrew Metronome to estimate that the film will draw at least 200.000 admissions by the end of the Christmas season.
Christmas Story is the feature debut by Juha Wuolijoki and recounts the unique and amazing journey of Santa Claus on his way to becoming the Santa that the world knows and loves. The film was opened by Sandrew Metronome on November 16th across Finland . Canada-based world sales agent Delphis Films plans to organize its international market premier of the film at EFM in Berlin next February.
