Venice Golden Lion winner The Return opened with a bang at the Italian box office, where it earned $161,313 from just 30 screens. Particularly impressively, newcomer Andrei Zvygatinsev's study of rebellion against parental authority - which is Russia's Oscar candidate - scored a massive screen average of $5,002 for Andrea Occhipinti's arthouse label Lucky Red.

Meanwhile, Italian comic Massimo Ceccherini's La Mia Vita A Stelle E Strisce (My Life with Stars And Stripes) also performed well on its opening weekend. Released by Italian International Film, the comedy which stars Ceccherini and Victoria Silvestedt as an American tourist in Tuscany, grossed $632,577 from 181 screens, earning a strong screen average of $3,425.

Another Italian comedy, Caterina Va In Citta, also continued to do well at the box office. The Paolo Virzi film earned a further $736,371 on its second weekend, bringing its running total to $1,706,048 for 01 Distribution.

Elsewhere, Intolerable Cruelty continued to pull in the crowds en masse: the picture has now earned a huge $8,749,467 just three weeks after its release, with an enormous screen average of $6,227 from 296 screens.