The Dressmaker.
More than a year since it premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, Jocelyn Moorhouse's The Dressmaker has finally been released in America, with Broad Green Pictures and Amazon rolling out a limited release over the weekend.
The adaptation of Rosalie Ham's novel opened on 39 screens in nine American cities, taking $180,522 in its first weekend, an average of $5,014.
"Amazon/Broadgreen are using a classic platform release for The Dressmaker," producer Sue Maslin told IF.
"The film has received wildly varying reviews but the campaign has resulted in a very high awareness of the film and delivered a screen average [of] over $5,000 on the first weekend."
"Jocelyn and I were present at numerous screenings in NY and LA and the audience reactions were hugely animated, just like in Australia.
"This, together with our 66,000 stitched-on FB followers, should drive the word of mouth effect when we open out in more than 200 screens next weekend."
Maslin currently has three projects in development, including an adaptation of Ann Turner's The Lost Swimmer.
The producer is also re-teaming with Moorhouse on "a project that Jocelyn has wanted to make for many, many years."
"It’s a beautiful story about Clara Schumann and her relationship with her husband, the composer Robert Schumann, and then the young Johannes Brahms, who they mentored and who came to live with them. Brahms ended up being very much a part of a relationship between the three of them, which was expressed in their music.
"Brahms was hopelessly in love, unrequitedly, with Clara, so it led to a very, very interesting triangular relationship. It’s really a love story: a film about music and creativity and madness".
Maslin is aiming to set the film up as a co-production, to be shot in Germany and Austria with post to be done back in Australia.