The fans of The name of the Rose auteur Umberto Eco hits NYC, boosting documentary about medieval scholar-turned-novelist-social-commentator to over $9.1K per screen — a nice showing from The Cinema Guild for a strong foreign-language documentary weekend for some indie and arthouse awards.
Umberto Eco: A Library of the World explores the life and work of the renowned Italian writer and professor of semiotics, whose best-selling novel was turned into a 1986 film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater as a medieval monk detective and his apprentice .
Filmmaker Davide Ferrario, who worked with Eco a year before the writer’s death on a video project for the 2015 Venice Biennale, gained access to his Milanese library of more than 30,000 contemporary books and 1,500 rare and antique volumes. In the documentary, the prolific author and original thinker, who has spoken eloquently about blue jeans and comic books, weighs in on the value of lowbrow books, the origins of fascism, the psychology of conspiracy theorists and history’s big mistakes.
Ferrario was in NYC this weekend for the opening at Film Forum and filming the third in a trilogy of literary documentaries, the latest on Italo Calvino. His 2006 film, Primo Levi’s Journey (Levi’s Road), retraces the steps of the Italian scientist and writer as he and other Auschwitz survivors embarked on an eight-month journey home to Turin in 1945. Levi’s words, mostly from his book La Tregua (The New Awakening), describe what he experienced.
Focus Features continued its theatrical run of Asteroid City in its third week in 1,900 expanded theaters and a no. Ranked #9 at the box office with a projected three-day gross of $3.8 million. The Wes Anderson comedy set at the Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention in a fictional American desert town circa 1955 averaged $2K per theater and $18.1M domestically.
Focus has also shown the premiere of the documentary Everything. Julie Cohen’s exploration of the intersex experience took in $145,000 from 225 theaters. NY and LA were the film’s strongest markets followed by Chicago, Boston and Austin. That’s a $569 PTA for the debut Tribeca Festival doc produced in partnership with NBC Studios. Great reviews (100% Rotten Tomatoes critical score), tough subject matter, the film follows actor and screenwriter River Gallo, political consultant Alicia Roth Weigel and Ph.D. student Sean Saifa Wall, now a leader in a fast-growing global movement advocating for greater understanding of the intersex community and an end to unnecessary surgeries.
Carrying A24’s Celine song Past lives continued its strong run with a three-day weekend estimate of nearly $1.55 million on 906 screens in its fifth week. Estimated earnings through Tuesday, July 4, will bring in $6.58 million +, its best same-theater hold in the top 20, the distributor said, as it plans to continue its theatrical run through the summer and beyond. beyond.
Music Box Movies See Paris again earned a projected $6.4K on three screens for a PSA of $2,121. Alice Winocur’s French drama premiere at Cannes 2022 starring Virginie Efira has projected $120.4K in its third week.