娱乐英语新闻:Spanish film Eight Basque Surnames emerges big box office hit

MADRID, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The film "Eight Basque surnames" (Ocho apellidos Vascos) has achieved the highest ever cinema audience for a Spanish-made film, it was announced on Monday.

The film, which is a comedy on the differences between the Basque region in the north of Spain and the community of Andalusia in the far south of the country, opened in cinemas on March 14 and in just over a month has attracted 6.5 million audiences.

Directed by Emilio Martinez Lazaro on a budget of just 3 million euros, Eight Basque Surnames has now earned around 38 million euros (52.5 million U.S. dollars at the box office) to become the second highest grossing Spanish film in history.

It tells the story of the romance between an upper class man from Seville and his left wing Basque independence seeking girlfriend, making fun of many of the cliches which surround these two parts of Spain.

The highest grossing Spanish film is currently the 2012 film "The Impossible" which starred Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in a drama about the tsunami which affected areas of the Indian Ocean in 2004.

The main reason why Eight Basque Surnames has not yet become the highest grossing Spanish film is mainly due to the fact that audiences have taken advantage of special low prices currently available at Spanish cinemas on Wednesdays.

These low prices of around four euros per ticket have been introduced in an effort to attract people back to cinemas and combat the effects of the increase in sales tax on cinema tickets to 21 percent at the start of September 2012.

Eight Basque Surnames is not Emilio Martinez Lazaro's first successful film, given that his 2002 musical comedy "The other side of the bed," was also a relative success taking 13 million euros at the box office and spawning a sequel.