Ministry to discount film tickets

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Culture Ministry aims to increase the cinema viewer with discount tickets. Hürriyet photo

The Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry plans to collaborate with the cinema sector to discount movie tickets in order to increase the number of viewers of Turkish films.

Cinema General Director Cem Erkul said cinema audiences were limited to two age groups in Turkey: people between the ages of 7 and 16, and 16 and 45.

Erkul said they especially wanted people over the age of 45 to go to cinema, adding, “We are searching to make a price different in different film sessions. We also have talks with movie theater operators. They have the same idea.”

The goal was to increase the number of Turkish productions to 100 annually, he said. “It should be a routine. We want to reach this goal by the end of 2013,” he added.

Erkul also said they planned to increase the occupancy rate in movie theaters. “The occupancy rate in movie theaters is 10.2 percent right now. Our goal is 25 percent.”

State support was not enough to realize this goal, he said, and explained their “road map” to increase the number of filmgoers.

“We are planning to draw housewives to movie theaters, because so far all plans have been made for young people. We want to reach people between the ages of 30 and 45 and above. We also want to draw people to movie theaters outside the shopping malls,” he said.

Erkul said another goal was to reduce ticket prices and they worked on new legal regulations. “We are almost done with it. But Turkish Parliament will evaluate it after January. We want movie theaters to show Turkish films for longer periods. When they screen a film only for one week, people cannot find the chance to see it,” he said.