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Australia tops Quickflix local requests

By Brendan Swift

Australia is the most requested DVD over the year to date according to online DVD rental store Quickflix followed by The Black Balloon and Romulus, My Father.

Its other most popular local titles included the 2006 drama Irresistible (1254 requests), 2007 thriller Noise (1080 requests), Peter Duncan’s Unfinished Sky (764 requests), and big budget animation Happy Feet (722 requests). Australia had 4706 requests, ahead of the Black Balloon‘s 3683 and Romulus’ 1650.

The survey by the fledgling listed company was conducted between the start of January and the end of April.

Among local films, Eric Bana’s Love The Beast and claymation feature Mary and Max – which will both be released on DVD later this year – were the eighth and ninth highest requested titles.

The Edgerton brothers thriller The Square rounded out the top ten with 537 requests for hire.

The news comes as Screen Australia last week released data showing Australian-produced titles accounted for 7.9 per cent, or $49.5 million, of the retail value of the top 1,000 titles sold on DVD and Blu-ray last year.

It compares with Australian-produced titles’ 8.5 per cent ($52 million) market share in 2007 and the five-year average of 8 per cent ($48 million).

For the first time ever an Australian-made program, Underbelly: Series 1, was the highest selling title in Australia (by value) last year.

The only Australian feature films in the top 20 list of best selling locally-produced DVDs were Gabriel and Happy Feet.