“Pinocchio” closes the year by doubling the audience at the Cineteca Nacional

2022 will be remembered as the year in which, thanks to Guillermo del Toro, the Cineteca Nacional was able to recover, to a large extent, 60% of the audience and the dynamism it had in 2019, before the pandemic forced the closing of the exhibition halls and drive the public into their homes.

It will also go down in the yearbook as the occasion on which Guillermo del Toro surpassed himself, with his recent production, Pinocchio, which with just 20 days of exhibition already leads the Top Ten of the year, above El callejón de las almas perdidos, by the same director, who came in fourth place, as well as in the historical ranking of the Cineteca, where it appears in sixth place, only below some Oscar winners and with longer exhibition time, such as Roma, Van Gogh’s Letters, Coco, or Parasites, but surpassing The Shape of Water, a film of his authorship that earned him the coveted golden statuette.

A third milestone is that two Mexicans head the lists of the highest grossing this year in the Xoco venue. In international premieres, Del Toro, and in the ranking of Mexican film premieres, Alejandro González Iñárritu, with Bardo, false chronicle of a few truths.

This Thursday, on the terrace of the Cineteca Nacional, its general director, Alejandro Pelayo, and the director of Broadcasting and Programming, Nelson Carro, shared the annual balance of the venue with the media.

“Pinocchio made us achieve all the goals” of the Cineteca Nacional this year, said Pelayo, bowing in gratitude. Since its premiere, on November 25, the film by the filmmaker from Guadalajara doubled the attendance of moviegoers at the venue, at a rate of at least 20,000 viewers per week, pointed out film critic Nelson Carro.

Then he counted the highest-grossing films of 2022. The Top Ten of international film releases is headed by “Pinocchio”, released on November 25, with more than 47,000 viewers as of December 15; They are followed by “The worst person in the world”, Joachim Trier (31,512), “Crimes of the future”, by David Cronenberg (21,317), “The alley of lost souls”, by G. Del Toro(18,307), “C’ mon C’mon Always in front”, by Mike Mills and “Bardo, false chronicle of a few truths”, by Alejandro G. Iñárritu (16,157), which in turn placed first at the box office in the ranking of Mexican releases .

Until the first week of December, the Cineteca Nacional has reached 798,622 attendees and 780,000 spectators (with purchased tickets); has screened 168 premieres, of which 40 were Mexican feature films, 100 were exclusive premieres on the Cineteca screens, and 50 were films brought exclusively to Mexico by the CN.

Nelson Carro calculated that they will close the year with around 800,000 viewers, that is, 60% of the attendance that the Cineteca had in 2019.

Film Restoration and Arieles

For its part, the Directorate of Collections, an area in charge of the rescue, conservation, and protection of national and world cinematographic heritage, highlighted that this year two feature films were restored, in collaboration with Imcine and Estudios Churubusco. These are “Los caifanes” (Juan Ibáñez, 1966) and “El bulto” (Gabriel Retes, 1991). Likewise, the remastering and new version with the director’s cut of “Deep Crimson” (Arturo Ripstein, 1996) was completed, which will be re-released in the first months of 2023, together with “La mujer del puerto”, also by Ripstein, a film by 1991, which has never been released, said Carro.

The restoration of 10 statuettes of the Ariel prize, belonging to the collection of the Cineteca Nacional, was also reported, by the National School of Conservation, Restoration and Museography ‘Manuel del Castillo Negrete’, of the INAH, and the restoration seminar-workshop of metals. Among these pieces, there are some prizes awarded to the actress Dolores del Río and the director Roberto Gavaldón.

Cinematheque of Arts and Chapultepec

Finally, Alejandro Pelayo announced that thanks to the 12 new rooms that will operate at the beginning of 2023 in the Cineteca de las Artes del Cenart and the new headquarters that is projected in the Fourth Section of the Chapultepec Forest, the National Cineteca will have 3 headquarters , with 30 rooms and 6,000 seats, “it is easy to say, but the great challenge will be, in the case of Chapultepec, mobility, for people to reach the space, and it will have to be achieved gradually, heating a space is not a matter of days, so it won’t be easy,” he said.

Nelson Carro added that “something changed after the pandemic.” The oldest audience left and has not returned as before, and instead a much younger audience is arriving. “There is an audience that I believe has been lost forever, so instead of thinking about recovering it, we have the challenge of generating a new audience, a younger audience, and the offer of titles is much greater than the actual capacities of the Cineteca ”, he concluded.

The 10 highest international grossing films 2022 / No. of viewers

1. Pinocchio, by Guillermo del Toro, 47,367*
2. The worst person in the world, by Joachim Trier, 31,512
3. Crimes of the Future, by David Cronenberg, 21,317
4. The alley of lost souls, by Guillermo del Toro, 18,307
5. C’mon C’mon: Always Forward, by Mike Mills, 16,909
6. Bardo, false chronicle of a few truths, by Alejandro González Iñárritu, 16,157*
7. Licorice Pizza, by Paul Thomas Anderson, 15, 373
8. Drive My Car, de Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 13, 997
9. Civil, by Teodora Ana Mihai, 11,367
10. The secret of doctor Grinberg, by Ida Cuéllar, 11,185*

*Continues on billboard

The 10 highest grossing Mexican films 2022 / No. of viewers

1. Bardo, false chronicle of a few truths, by Aleiandro González Iñárritu, 16,157*
2. Civil, by Teodora Ana Mihai, 11,367
3. The secret of doctor Grinberg, by Ida Cuéllar, 11,185*
4. Saints, of Joshua Gil, 7,290
5. Mixtec knot, by Ángeles Cruz, 6,628
6. The hole in the fence, Joaquín del Paso, 5,670
7. Memory of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 4,997
8. Evil eye, by Isaac Ezban, 4,503
9. 50 (or two whales are found on the beach), by Jorge Cuchí, 4,499
10. Sabina sombra, by Oliver Victoria, 3,801

*Continues on billboard

Historical ranking of the Cineteca / N° of spectators

1. Isle of Dogs (2018) by Wes Anderson 93,205
2. Rome (2018) by Alfonso Cuarón 71,589
3. Van Gogh Letters (2017) by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman 55,367
4. Coco (2017) by Adrián Molina and Lee Unkrich 49,903
5. Parasites (2019) by Bong Joon-ho 49,119
6. Pinocchio (2022) by Guillermo del Toro 47,367
7. Jack’s House (2018) by Lars von Trier 42.143
8. Pain and Glory (2019) by Pedro Almodóvar 41,631
9. Guason (2019) by Todd Phillips 38,941
10. Nymphomania (2014) by Lars von Trier 38,804