New record when Göteborg festival closes

The last day of the 31st Göteborg International Film Festival is here and time has come for som facts and figures. This year 124 000 tickets were sold for 750 screenings of 450 films from 67 different countries. 30 488 member ship cards were sold. This means that the festival manifests its strong position on the high - and even increases ticket sales with 6000 and memberships with 3 488.

During the closing press conference today Marit Kapla summed up her first year as festival director.
”We are extremely happy and pleased, like all our guests. It has been a fantastic festival which started perfectly the first weekend which had the same flavour as this year’s focus: Mexican. An unforgettable moment was when Gael García Bernal entered the dj stand at the Opening party and a hundred cameras flashed at the same time.

This year’s seminar programme, Cinemix, was a success as well, with more than 3000 visitors during 36 seminars. With names like Julie Taymor, Gael García Bernal, Koji Yamamura and Hou Hsiao Hsien, giving Master Classes, the crowds lined up.
Among the most popular films in the programme were expected titles like opening film The King of Ping Pong, by Jens Jonsson, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, Todd Hayne’s I’m Not There, Gael García Bernal’s Déficit and Jiri Menzel’s I Served the King of England. Other popular films were Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Orphanage, Craig Gillespie’s Lars and the Real Girl, Chico Teixeira’s Alice’s House and Ernesto Contrera’s Blue Eyelids.