La Luna De Avelleneda(Avelleneda's Moon), Juan JoseCampanella's latest drama starring Ricardo Darin, passed the 1m admissionsbarrier in Argentina this week, becoming his second smash hit after SonOf The Bride.

The box office score is even more impressive bearing inmind the current economic crisis in the country, not to mention the fact thatits population is around 19m people meaning that some 5% have seen the film.

By the end ofits run in 2001, Son Of The Bride had notched up over 2m admissions over 10% of the population.

La Luna opened on May 20. Its heartwarming storyof the attempts by a group of locals to stop a sports and social club fromclosure in a Buenos Aires neighbourhood caught fire with audiences despite anear two-and-a-half-hour running time.

Worldwide salesoutside Argentina are being handled by Neil Friedman of Menemsha Films in LosAngeles. "Juan Jose Campanella is the Steven Spielberg of Argentina," saidFriedman, who added that the film has been pre-sold to Gussi in Mexico, AscotElite in Switzerland and United King in Israel on the strength of Son Of TheBride. He is planning to kick off other sales in the fall festival season

In North America, SonyPictures Classics handled Son Of The Bride which won an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film in 2002and grossed $0.62m. Sony Pictures bought remake rights to the film as a vehiclefor Adam Sandler.