Transnational Scandinavia? Scandinavian Film Culture in a European and Global Context Ib Bondebjerg & Eva Novrup Redvall Cinema has always been both a very national and a very global form of cultural expression. Images often travel more easily and faster across borders than literature and other cultural forms, but since 1945 the global trends in cinema have been remarkably stable in the sense that the consumption of films has been dominated by American films and by national films in most European countries, whereas the distribution and consumption of films from other European countries has been rather limited. The figures vary from country to country, but the general structural pattern is clear. In 2008 for instance, the average percentage of films in EU27 shows an American share of sold tickets of 63.9% and a total European share (both on the domestic market and in other European countries) of 27.8% (Lumiere Database, 2008). The total cinema admissions for 2008 were 925 million tickets, out of which the US took 591 million. In addition to the dominance by American films, 6,5% of the European films are in fact EU/American co-productions, which means that the US is involved in a further 60 million admissions. The remaining world cinema is almost invisible, accounting for less than 2% in Europe. The actual EU share of total cinema admissions this year was thus only a mere 256 million tickets. The EU is an insignificant player in this context and, furthermore, most of the 27.8% can be broken down to figures showing that non-national European films is down to 6-8%. The exchange of films between the European markets is not impressive, despite years of co-production and EU support for films. When we examine markets and audience figures it becomes clear that there is a very limited European film culture. What we have is a family of film cultures with some regional and bilateral cooperation and interaction. Into this generally gloomy picture of a weak European film culture comes the Scandinavian film culture, perhaps dominated by a ‘myth’ of being a film and television culture with a strong affinity between the three countries (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) and a tradition of collaboration. The idea of a strong affinity is supported by the