Sofia Coppola's Oscar hopeful Lost In Translation opened on a high at the Italian box office, scoring the weekend's second highest screen average after BVI's Finding Nemo with a superb $6,250 per screen.

On its first release in a major international territory, the Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanssen picture, which screened to rave reviews at the Venice Film Festival, grossed a strong $196,445 for local distributor Mikado from just 31 screens.

Meanwhile, Finding Nemo opened with a bang at the top of the box office, grossing a huge $5,215,485 from 520 screens, for a massive screen average of $8,820.

On the arthouse circuit, French-Canadian picture The Barbarian Invasions also did well. Distributed by Bim, the film opened on just 19 prints and earned $87,708 for a good screen average of $4,502.

The weekend's fourth new release, Mikado's animation title Opopomoz, fared less well. Directed by Italy's Lucky and Zorba animation maestro Enzo D'Alo, the Italian-French-Spanish co-production earned just $61,033 from 60 screens, posting a timid screen average of $1,017.