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The center’s representative Kristine Matisa told LETA that audiences grew at movie theaters and other public film screening venues, as well as on Filmas.lv online movie site.

The National Film Center’s representative said that of the 2,516,259 people who attended Latvia’s movie theaters last year, 185,782 went to Latvian films, which took 7.38% of the Latvian film market in 2016. The market share of Latvian films doubled from 3.81% in 2015.

“This fact has a quite objective explanation – only three Latvian-made feature films reached movie theaters in 2015, but in 2016 their number was up to 2016. Of these films two were particularly successful in terms of attendance and made it to the Top ten of the most watched films of 2016, competing with films from Europe and the U.S.,” said Matisa.

Director Viesturs Kairiss’ historical feature “The Chronicles of Melany” was one of the two most successful Latvian films, which drew 75,160 spectators and took 4th position in the Top ten of the most watched films of 2016. “Swingers”, a comedy by filmmaker Andrejs Ekis, rounded out the Top ten with 50,111 spectators.

“Mellow Mud”, the debut feature of Renars Vimba, was the third most watched Latvian film, seen by 26,409 people.