Mexico City -- Despite strong criticism from Roman Catholic officials, The Crime of Father Amaro set the record for the country's highest-grossing Mexican film in its first weekend.

Known in Spanish as El Crimen del padre Amaro, director Carlos Carrera's film earned 31 million pesos ($5-million) and reached an audience of 863,000 people in 365 movie theatres throughout Mexico, it was reported Tuesday. The previous record of 12 million pesos was set by Y Tu Mama Tambien.

The Crime of Father Amaro, which is screening at the Toronto International Film Festival next month, is a modern-day adaptation of Portuguese novelist Jose Maria Eca de Queiroz's 1875 satire about a priest struggling with his vows of celibacy. In the movie, a newly ordained priest begins a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl and discovers that one of his fellow priests is mixed up with drug traffickers while another is involved with leftist guerrillas.
AP