The indie box office offers a half dozen strong debuts from Magic Farm buy El Planeta’s Amalia Ulman to Venice Special Jury Prize winner April to Cannes Critics Week award- winner Blue Sun Palace. Sony Pictures Classics leads moderate releases with On Swift Horses with a remastered rerelease of Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. The Legend Of Ochi takes a big leap to 1,700 screens.
Limited release indies: Mubi debuts Ulman’s comedy comedy Magic Farm starring Chloë Sevigny, Alex Wolff, Joe Apolloino, and Simon Rex at the Angelika Film Center in New York. World premiered at Sundance, screened at the Berlin Film Festival and was the opening night film of the Los Angeles Festival of Movies earlier this month. When a misguided American documentary crew in search of their next viral segment ends up in the wrong town in rural Argentina, chaos ensues. As they collaborate with locals to fake a new music trend, unexpected relationships form and an unfolding health crisis becomes apparent in a surreal send-up of the media.
Metrograph Pictures’ April, the Luca Guadagnino-produced sophomore feature from Dea Kulumbegashvili (Beginning), which won the Venice Special Jury Prize, opens at the Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center, with the director in person for several Q&As. Follows on May 2, with more markets added May 9 and beyond. enters on Nina, a skilled obstetrician in Georgia (the Eastern European country), who finds herself accused of malpractice after a newborn dies during delivery. The investigation she faces threatens to reveal her secret practice of providing abortions to women in the surrounding villages.Also played TIFF, NYFF, LF, and Sundance.
Constance Tsang’s drama Blue Sun Palace, winner of the French Touch Prize at Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival 2024 (Deadline review here) is playing the American Cinematheque in LA and the Metrograph in NY. Both sold out weeks in advance — as were two as part of the New Directors/New Films festival in NYC earlier this month. The Metrograph has added a second week. The Monica came on boad late to accommodate demand. This is Dekanalog’s biggest release ever and its well on the way to 30-50 runs with the distributor planning a gradual nationwide in coming months beginning with San Francisco and Atlanta next weekend.
Lee Kang-sheng alongside Ke-xi Wu and Xu Haixpeng star as three Chinese immigrants living in Flushing, Queens — he’s a construction worker, they are employees of a massage parlor they dream of being able to leave — whose routine lives and relationships are changed forever following a tragic Lunar New Year incident.
Chinese American first-time feature filmmaker and actress Ke-Xi Wu are supporting the opening weekend by appearing for multiple Q&As. They will be in LA for a post-film Q&A at American Cinematheque, moderated by director Andrew Ahn, whose Wedding Banquet is currently in theatres. and will be appearing for Friday and Saturday Q&As at Metrograph, with Friday night’s conversation moderated by director Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger), and Saturday’s moderated by director Savanah Leaf (Earth Mama).
IFC Films’ crime thriller Neighborhood Watch debuts limited 15 theaters. Directed by Duncan Skiles and starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jack Quaid, Malin Ackerman. When a mentally ill young man thinks he witnesses an abduction and the police refuse to believe him, he reluctantly turns to his next door neighbor — a bitter retired security guard — to help him find the missing woman.
Moderate releases: Sony Pictures Classics’ On Swift Horses stars at 555 theaters Directed by Daniel Minahan, written by Bryce Kaas and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva and Sasha Calle. Premiered at TIFF, see Deadline review. Muriel and her husband Lee are beginning a bright new life in California when he returns from the Korean War. But their newfound stability is upended by the arrival of Lee’s charismatic brother, Julius, a wayward gambler with a secret past. A dangerous love triangle quickly forms. When Julius takes off in search of the young card cheat he’s fallen for, Muriel’s longing for something more propels her into a secret life of her own.
Sony Music Vision and Trafalgar Releasing are back this weekend with Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, the groundbreaking 1972 film directed by Adrian Maben digitally re-mastered in 4K from the original 35mm footage and with enhanced audio newly mixed by Steven Wilson. What its distributors are calling the definitive version of this pioneering film will be on 654 screens including Imax in North America.
It was no. 3 at the domestic box office opening night with a strong start pushing $1.3 million domestic. Internationally, the film grossed $1.7 million last night, taking top three box office position in the U.K, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. The current worldwide tally is just over $3 million.
The live album will be available for the first time on vinyl on May 2 and is available for pre-order.
The Metropolitan Opera’s 2024–25 Live in HD season continues with Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro on Saturday at 1 pm ET on 700 screens domestic (1,800 worldwide) from Fathom Entertainment. The specialty distributor will offer two encores on Wednesday, April 30 at 1 pm and 6:30 pm local time.
Conductor Joana Mallwitz makes her company debut with the return of Mozart’s comic masterpiece. Leading an ensemble cast in their Met role debuts, bass-baritone Michael Sumuel and soprano Olga Kulchynska star as the clever valet Figaro and his betrothed, the wily maid Susanna. Baritone Joshua Hopkins joins as the skirt-chasing Count Almaviva, with soprano Federica Lombardi as the compassionate Countess. Mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce completes the distinguished principal cast as the mischievous page Cherubino.
Notable expansion: A24’s Sundance premiering fantasy adventure The Legend of Ochi jumps from 4 screens to 1,700 in week 2. Written and director by Isaiah Saxon, starring Helena Zengel and Finn Wolfhard with Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe. In a remote village on the island of Carpathia, a shy farm girl named Yuri is raised to fear an elusive animal species known as ochi. But when Yuri discovers a wounded baby ochi has been left behind, she escapes on a quest to bring him home. Deadline review.
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