The film’s Chinese distributor Golden-Spread has informed that The Stolen Princess has passed the check and fully matches creative and legislative requirements in PRC. The premiere date in China has been announced, which is January 18, 2019.
The Stolen Princess appearance on the big screens of People’s Republic of China is the first case of Ukraine-produced film commercial release in the biggest country of the world by population. It is also worth noting that due to the specifics of local legislation any foreign film has a hard time entering the Chinese market. For example, Christopher Robin, a popular Disney-produced family movie, has been refused distribution in the country this summer.
During the first week of release in China, The Stolen Princess will have good starting positions: about 4,500 screens, which is an indicator of a commercial release. With regard to this quantity, a very well-developed cinema network and active cinema attendance, Ukrainian animated film will be available to a lot of children and their parents.
“This is an unprecedented case for Ukrainian film industry! Our film product goes into wide release on such a complicated and rather closed territory like People’s Republic of China. We have become convinced and proved yet again that Ukrainian films are a commercial and competitive product far beyond Ukraine. Animagrad studio team consists of top professionals; they put their whole hearts and a part of their lives into the cartoon. We believe that Chinese children and their parents will appreciate the film and vote for it with bought tickets,” said Evgeny Drachov, international sales manager at FILM.UA Group, sharing his expectations.
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The releases of The Stolen Princess on big screens of foreign countries which started in March this year are still ongoing. During these almost nine months the Ukrainian cartoon with the biggest box office produced by Animagrad studio visited over 40 countries where it was seen in the cinemas by more than 1.5 million viewers. And this number will only grow as more releases are planned for late 2018 and for 2019 – not just in China but in a range of Central American countries, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, etc.
During the international theatrical distribution, The Stolen Princess was seen by residents of such European countries as Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania, Georgia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Estonia, and Portugal.
Since September, The Stolen Princess has been shown on big screens of Central and South American countries: Mexico, Venezuela, Chili, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Colombia. Especially high demand for the animated story about Kyiv princess Mila was observed on the Asian continent where the cartoon was shown in cinemas of United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Bahrein, Oman, Jordan, Israel, Mongolia, Vietnam, and India.
