‘Memoir Of A Snail’ & ‘Conclave’ Debut; A Soft-Side-Of-Donald-Trump Doc Takes On ‘The Apprentice’ – Specialty Preview

Indie releases from limited (Memoir of a Snail) to wide (Conclave) are testing an increasingly lively specialty box office heading into awards season with a handful of decorated documentaries this week including Dahomey, Black Box Diaries, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock and Another Kind of Wilderness and some notable expansions.

Also hitting theaters this weekend, a new documentary showing the soft side of Donald Trump, The Man You Don’t Know, whose producers are crying foul, saying a number of theaters have bailed on opening weekend.

Expansions: Anora, Neon’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning film by Sean Baker, expands to 35 screens after posting 2024’s top limited opening of $550,000 on six screens. It heads into week 2 with a $752,400 cume. Utopia’s The Line goes from one screen to 55, and High Tide from Strand Releasing expands from NYC to Los Angeles at the Laemmle’s Royal and NoHo 7.

A24’s We Live In Time starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh breaks wide in week 3.

Memoir of a Snail from IFC Films is the second feature from Academy Award winning claymation animator and director Adam Elliot, who won Best Animated Short Oscar for Harvie Krumpet in 2004. Opens in limited release at five theaters in New York (AMC Lincoln Square, IFC Center and Brooklyn Alamo Drafthouse) and Los Angeles (AMC Century City, AMC Burbank), expanding into November. 

The stellar ensemble Australian cast including Succession’s Sarah Snook, Eric Bana, Jacki Weaver and Kodi Smit-McPhee spins the tale of Grace Pudel, a book-loving, snail-collecting misfit, who sinks into a series of misfortunes after being separated from her twin brother Gilbert. Despite her hardships, inspiration and hope arise when Grace begins a friendship with an eccentric elderly woman named Pinky.

The film, Certified Fresh at 98% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, world premiered at this year’s Annecy Film Festival, see Deadline review, where Elliot became the first director to win the top Cristal Award twice. It recently won Best Film at BFI London across categories. Also took the Special Jury Prize at the Animation Is Film Festival, along with the Audience Award in a tie with Naoko Yamada’s The Colors Within.

Edward Berger’s Conclave from Focus Features graces 1,742 theaters after kicking off a strong film festival run following Telluride world premiere. Deadline’s review called it a “barn burning thriller” and one of the year’s best films. Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow topline Berger’s followup to his 2022 Oscar-winning All Quiet On The Western Front.

Conclave, written by Peter Straughan based on Robert Harris’ best-selling novel of the same name. With Lucian Msamati, Brían F. O’Byrne, Carlos Diehz, Merab Ninidze with Sergio Castellitto. It follows one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events, selecting the new Pope. Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes) is tasked with running this covert process after the unexpected death of a beloved Pope. With the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders gathered from around the world locked together in the Vatican halls, Lawrence uncovers a trail of deep secrets left in the dead Pope’s wake that could shake the foundations of the Church.

Sundance rom-com horror Your Monster from Vertical is getting a theatrical-only release on 651 screens with the distributor touting it as a great date movie. Written and directed by Caroline Lindy and starring Melissa Barrera, who has been aggressively supporting the film on social. Exhibition support appear strong as it’s the chosen film for the Mystery Movie programs at Regal, AMC, Cinemark and Marcus.

After her life falls apart when she’s dumped. By her longtime boyfriend (Edmund Donovan), soft-spoken actor Laura Franco (Barrera) finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming Monster (Tommy Dewey) living in her closet. A romantic-comedy-horror film about falling in love with your inner rage.

Daisy Ridley-starring neo-noir Magpie from Shout! Studios opens in in limited release in select markets including New York at Village East; LA’s Lumiere and Laemmle Glendale; and Boston at Alamo Drafthouse. Helmed by British theater director Sam Yates in his feature film debut and written by Tom Bateman, the sexy thriller that premiered at SXSW centers on married couple Anette (Ridley) and Ben (Shazad Latif), whose lives begin to fracture when their young daughter is cast in a big-budget film alongside a glamorous movie star, Alicia (Matilda Lutz). As Anette’s suspicions of Ben’s infatuation with Alicia intensify, their secrets and lies threaten to destroy them all. Bateman and Yates at opening weekend Q&As Friday and Saturday at Village East.

Mubi’s Dahomey from acclaimed filmmaker Mati Diop opens in New York at IFC and Film at Lincoln Center. The winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin (Deadline review here), the immersive documentary sits at 98% with critics on RT. Set in November 2021, the film charts 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey that are due to leave Paris and return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin. Using multiple perspectives, Diop questions how these artifacts should be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence, delving into issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution. This is Diop’s second film. Her first, supernatural romance Atlantics, took the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2019.

Black Box Diaries from MTV Documentary Films debuts at New York’s Film Forum. The doc by Japanese journalist Shiori Ito took the Human Rights Award at Sundance (see Deadline review) and Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX and won audience prizes at the Seattle, New Zealand and Sarajevo festivals.

It follows Ito’s courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Unfolding like a thriller and combining secret investigative recordings, vérité shooting and emotional first-person video, Ito’s quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s desperately outdated judicial and societal systems. A journalist, writer and filmmaker with a focus on gender-based human rights issues. Based on Ito’s bestselling book Black Box, based on her experience, which won the Free Press Association of Japan Award for Best Journalism in 2018. In 2020 Ito was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.

Expands to theaters in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago on November 1.

A New Kind of Wilderness, the Sundance Grand Jury Winning Documentary, opens at New York’s DCTV Firehouse for a qualifying run. Norwegian director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen follows the Payne family, seeking a small farm in the forest. They practice home-schooling and strive for a closely-knit family dynamic in harmony with nature. However, when tragedy unexpectedly strikes the family, it upends their idyllic world and forces them to forge a new path into modern society. Director Q&A Friday.

Mark Cousins documentary My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock from Cohen Media Group, opening in limited release, follows the legendary filmmaker (voiced by Alistair McGowan) as he rewatches his films The documentary takes the audience on an odyssey through his vast career – his vivid silent films, the legendary films of the 1950s and 60s and his later works – in playful and revealing ways. Premiered at Telluride, see Deadline review. At 98% with critics on RT. Debuts at 12 theaters including the Quad in NYC and Landmark Nuart in LA, adding additional cites through Nov.

La Cocina, a Willa release by Alonso Ruizpalacios starring Rooney Mara and Raúl Briones, debuts at the Angelika in NYC. Premiered at Berlin, see Deadline review. A kitchen pic set at the lunch rush at The Grill in Manhattan with money missing from the till. The undocumented cooks are being investigated and Pedro (Briones) is the prime suspect. A dreamer and a troublemaker, he’s in love with Julia (Mara), an American waitress who cannot commit to a relationship, as The Grill’s owner has promised to help Pedro with his papers. A shocking revelation stops the production line of one of the city’s busiest kitchens once and for all.

Billed as “A tragic and comic tribute to the invisible people who keep our restaurants running and our stomachs full, whilst chasing a perhaps unreachable version of the American dream,” the film also stars Laura Gómez, Julia Haltigan, James Waterston, Lee Sellars, Shavanna Calder and Leo James.

Adds Laemmle Monica in LA, Roxie in San Francisco and Siskel Film Center in Chicago next weekend followed by a national theatrical release.

Let’s Start a Cult from Dark Sky Films opens in 90 theaters in the top 35 markets. The dark comedy about a doomsday cult is directed by Ben Kitnick and stars Stavros Halkias with the comedian doing Q&As in NYC at the Village East and at Regal Times Square over the weekend, along with Alamo Brooklyn during the week. Having missed out on his cult’s long awaited ritual suicide, an obnoxious loser teams up with his bogus ex-messiah to rebuild their doomsday commune. Traveling together through middle America, the constantly-bickering duo induct a military wannabe, a mentally unstable mom, and a mysterious foreign hitchhiker into their cult. But will this family of outcasts fulfill their transcendent destiny, or decide this life might be worth living after all?

With CM Punk, Serafina Vecchio, Wes Haney and Eric Rehill.

The Herricanes, part of the first women’s full tackle football league in the 1970s, get the big screen treatment in this doc from Blue Harbor Entertainment opening in Houston, the team’s home town, in the documenary by Olivia Kuan. Arrives in New York and LA next month. The unknown, untold story of the Houston Herricanes, who fielded a team for love of the game despite adversity, and little to no experience, launching a movement that is still in motion today. The team received minimal support from the public and substantial blowback from families and fans during the four years they played, but found strength in each other. Premiered at Sundance 2023, taking the Audience Award – Documentary Spotlight Program, with recognition at the Mountainfilm Festival, the Nashville Film Festival and Florida Film Festival.

With the election about two weeks away, the new documentary from Global Ascension Studios, The Untold Truth Of Donald J. Trump | The Man You Don’t Know, comes a few weeks after Ali Abassi’s The Apprentice turned a critical eye on the former president in a biopic starring Sebastian Stan.

The Man You Don’t Know lets the love flow. Director Christopher Martini shows the heroic family-man in the Republican presidential candidate through interviews with family members and friends including Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump, Eric Trump, Kai Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Hulk Hogan, Frank Stallone and Amber Rose.

The producer-distributor was irate at what it said were cinemas pulling the film, noting that it anticipated 600-800 screens initially but only established between 400-600 that were running it.

“In 37 years, I’ve never seen creative work get censored by theaters in this country,” said Arthur Sarkissian, head of production for Global Ascension and the longtime producer behind the Rush Hour franchise, While You Were Sleeping and Last Man Standing. “The public has the right to choose what they want to see.”

The film premiered at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last night with the former President in attendance and the election days away. According to press reports, he said at the event that he’s “leading substantially, but they cheat like hell,” referring to Democrats. Polls have been showing pretty much a dead heat.

The doc, made in the weeks after the assassination attempt on Trump in July, follows the theatrical release of The Apprentice, which premiered at Cannes but subsequently had a tough time getting distribution after Trump threatened legal action and called those involved with the project “human scum.” Briarcliff ultimately took it on. The film, also starring Jeremy Strong and Maria Bakalova debuted earlier this month on just over 1,700 screens and there were some theaters that declined that as well. It’s still playing.

The Man You Don’t Know is Global Ascension’s second film. The first was The Relentless Patriot about right-wing activist Scott LoBaido earlier this year (no grosses reported), also directed by Martini.

Recently, conservative podcaster Matt Walsh’s film Am I Racist?, which opened September 13, was an indie standout with $12.27 million. Pundit and conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza’s Vindicating Trump documentary from late September topped out at $1.47 million.