Thank you to all who supported "Bella"

Bella had a great opening weekend, finishing first in income per theatre, at $7,928 per screen, according Laura Ingraham, who interviewed Eduardo Verastegui on her show tonight.She extrapolated that if "Bella" had the same number of theatres as Saw IV,( the big moneymaker this weekend which made $30 million) it would have made the same amount of money.

"Thanks to the grassroots support of the Latino and faith community, Bella accomplished more than we expected, and we hope this is just the beginning,” said financier and producer Sean Wolfington of Metanoia Films. “We are so grateful for the support we’ve received thus far, and if we can maintain that support in the second week, Bella will have the momentum to reach millions of people with its message of hope and redemption.”

HT Citizen Link

We attended the film as a family on Sunday, after Mass and a cold hour at the pumpkin farm. I was thrilled to see the theatre half full on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and enjoyed seeing many familiar faces from the campus ministers to the Life Center crowd. We sat behind Fr Francis Nuss, one of my favorite priests, so I was concerned that Christina, age 5 would behave well enough to remain in the theatre. I need not have worried. She behaved so well, that I was able to completely enjoy the film that I had thought about frequently but hadn't seen for eight months. '

It was quite a unique and emotional experience, reminding me exactly why I felt such a stroung desire to share the good news that "Bella" was coming to theatres. I enjoyed the rich textures of the Mexican food, the varied songs in the soundtrack, which were perfectly suited for each scene, but, most of all, the sensitive dialogue dealing with one of the most inflammatory issues of our time, the right to life. Nina's dilemma was never trivialized into sound bites, her anguish over her painful childhood, anger over her absent lover's dismissal of fatherhood, and her anxiety over her ability to mother and support a child were realistically portrayed. Jose's response was a rare mixture of protectiveness and sympathy, he was a masculine man in the truest sense of the word, a much-needed role model in our fatherless times. The family was like mine, a mixture of explosive emotions and sustaining love, peppered with the right amount of good-natured teasing. I feel for anyone who hasn't got this type of New York-Latino family. There's nothing else like it.

I enjoyed the movie even more because I had read all the negative criticism of the film, and saw at once how baseless the criticisms were. "Bella" is a fine work of art and it's popularity will help show this to the world. Here are my most recent contributions to publicizing "Bella": thanks to Nehring the Edge Film Reviews, my review on Mercatornet was picked up by Reuters News Service and USA Today here and here.