The independent market is doing quite well. A great Indian film Kalki 2898 AD can destabilize RRRNorth American opening weekend. June Squibb-starrer Thélma runs in midweek shows and is $3.75 million ahead of the second week, steady in 1,280 theaters. projector Photos Types of Kindness by Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor things) starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons is expanding from five to 500 screens after its best limited opening of the year last weekend.
Annie Boulanger Janet Planet A24’s print run goes from 2 to 300 and a handful of interesting indies open in limited release of Catherine Breillat’s film Last summer at Jake Paltrow’s June zero. Things are still quite difficult, but there is room for optimism. I don’t know if it will last, but it’s nice..
New:Telugu sci-fi epic Kalki 2898 AD on more than 900 screens, it rivals the crossover blockbuster €€€ as distributor Prathyangira Cinemas stated, the film grossed $5.56 million in North America between Wednesday previews and Thursday’s opening date. Written and directed by Nag Ashwin. Starring Telugu and Hindi superstars Prabhas, Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan, the film’s trailer reached over 43 million views in a few days and grossed over $3 million in North American pre-sales. Deadline reported that it was the most expensive Indian film of all time.
Dad from Sony Pictures Classics, the directorial debut of writer-director Christy Hall, is released on 628 screens. The film premiered in Telluride, see Deadline’s rave review. Stars Sean Penn as a veteran New York City taxi driver and Dakota Johnson as a passenger sharing his problems during a long, busy nighttime drive from JFK Airport to Manhattan.
The verticals A Sacrifice opens on 230 screens. Adapted from Tokyo Directed by Nicholas Hogg, the film is written and directed by Jordan Scott, produced by Ridley Scott and Michael Pruss for Scott Free Productions and Augenschein Filmproduktion, and stars Eric Bana, Sadie Sink and Sylvia Hoeks.
American social psychologist Ben Monroe (Bana) investigates a local Berlin cult linked to disturbing events. As he immerses himself in his work, his rebellious teenage daughter, Mazzy (Sink), befriends a mysterious local boy who introduces her to the city’s underground party scene. As their two worlds come to a dangerous intersection, Ben will race against time to save his daughter.
Limited openings: Last summerfrom Sideshow/Janus Films, is the first film in a decade from French director Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl, The Last Mistress). Previewed at Cannes, see Deadline review, in Toronto and at the NYFF. Lea Drucker stars as a middle-aged woman who has an explosive affair with her teenage stepson (Leo Kircher). “Breillat shows a bourgeois family which fractures, which masks the cracks with lies and which ends up repairing itself, the balms of silence and hypocrisy guaranteeing that nothing unpleasant is exposed and that nothing changes”, a writes Deadline of the director, who “has worked with porn stars, was one of the first to show an erection in an arthouse film and earned the nickname ‘porn auteurist’.” With Olivier Rabourdin, Clotilde Courau
Opens in New York (Angelika, Film at Lincoln Center) and Los Angeles (Nuart), then expands later.
June zero by Jake Paltrow opens in New York at the Quad with Q&As with the directors all weekend and moderators including Kent Jones and Stephen Whitty. Adds Los Angeles and other top 10 markets next week, moving into the top 50 the following week.
Paltrow revisits the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, from the unique perspectives of three distinct characters: Eichmann’s Moroccan-Jewish prison guard; an Israeli police investigator who also happens to be a Holocaust survivor; and a precocious 13-year-old Libyan immigrant. Based on real-life testimony and shot entirely on 16mm film, June zero highlights the idea that shared trauma forges strong and unexpected bonds. Written by Paltrow and Tom Shoval.
The oscilloscope presents 18th French vampire thriller of the century The Vourdalak by Adrien Beauat at the IFC Center in New York, expanding until July. Created in Venice. Adapted from a short story (The Vourdalak Family by Tolstoy, 1839) predating Bram Stoker’s Dracula by more than half a century.
When the Marquis d’Urfé, a noble emissary of the King of France, is attacked and abandoned in a remote countryside, he finds refuge in a strange and isolated manor. The resident family, reluctant to take him in, exhibits strange behavior as they await the imminent return of their father, Gorcha. But what begins as simply strange quickly turns into a real nightmare. With Kacey Mottet Klein, Ariane Labed, Grégoire Colin, Vassili Schneider.
Cinema Guild releases Music by Angela Schanelec at Lincoln Center, the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, and the Lark Theater in Larkspur, California, with arthouse screenings throughout July. The film, which premiered in Berlin, is a modern myth loosely based on the story of Oedipus. On a stormy night in the mountains of Greece, two lost young people abandon their newborn baby. Taken in by a family of farmers, Ion grew up without knowing either his father or his mother. Years later, after a tragic accident, he is sent to prison, where he meets Iro. The two form a bond, expressed through music, that will alternately haunt and sustain them for the rest of their lives. With Alyosha Schneider, Agathe Bonitzer, Marisha Triantafyllidou, Argyris Xafis.
Family portrait from Factory 25, the feature debut from Brooklyn-based writer-director Lucy Kerr, open at Metrograph. Premiered at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival in the Concorso Cineasti del presente section, it won the Boccalino d’Oro for Best Director. Q&A with Kerr and star Deragh Campbell (Anne at 13,000 feet, the stinking paradise). Expands to Chicago on July 12 at the Gene Siskel Film Center and screens in Los Angeles on July 19 and 20 at Now Instant Image Hall, with additional cities to be announced. Follows a sprawling family on the morning of a scheduled group photo. Starring Chris Galust, Katie Folger, Rachel Alig, Robert Salas and Silvana Jakich.
How to Come to Life with Norman Maileran intimate portrait of the literary giant, premieres in the United States at Film Forum, presented by Zeitgeist Films. The first project with full access to the Mailer family and its archives won Best Documentary at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. It unearths a treasure trove of intimate, never-before-seen footage, never-before-seen footage, audio recordings, and interviews from throughout the life of the man who was perhaps America’s last true public intellectual.
Independent distributor Hope Runs High presents the film, which has been nominated three times for the Indie Spirit Awards (Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, Best Cinematography) Chronicles of a Wandering Saintthe feature debut of Argentine writer/director Tomás Gómez Bustillo, based in Los Angeles. It will screen for a week in New York at the IFC Center, then at the Lumiere Cinema in Los Angeles next weekend. Additional screenings will take place over the weekend at the American Cinematheque with Q&As with the filmmakers. It will then expand. It premiered at SXSW last year, where it won the Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award.
In a small rural Argentinian village, Rita Lopez, a devout but insatiably competitive woman, decides that staging a miracle could be her ticket to sainthood. After discovering a lost statue in the back room of her chapel, she convinces her neglected but loving husband to help her orchestrate the grand reveal that will finally establish her as the most admired woman in town.