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Paul Schneider (L) and Geoffrey Rush in 'The Daughter' (Photo: Mark Rogers)
Kino Lorber has acquired U.S. rights to Australian director Simon Stone's debut feature, a re-imagining of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, which stars Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, Ewen Leslie, Paul
The Daughter may well contribute to a higher profile for Australian cinema in the U.S. with Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker, Garth Davis’ Lion and Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge slated for release later this year. Nicole O'Donohue, who produced The Daughter with Jan Chapman, tells FORBES that Kino Lorber will release the film nationally in the northern winter, exact date and number of screens to be determined.
Kino Lorber president Richard Lorber said: " The Daughter is an emotionally indelible experience that brings families closer despite all the pain that can drive them apart. It does the Ibsen original proud with A list talent sinking their hearts into this profound drama."
Australian films have struggled for exposure in the U.S. this year, mirroring their travails in the home market. Some 37 titles including Sherpa, Gods of Egypt, A Month of Sundays, Looking For Grace and Goldstone in theatrical release in Oz have an aggregate gross of $A10.5 million ($7.9 million), according to the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia. That’s in sharp contrast to calendar 2015 when local films amassed $A88 million, a record 7.18% market share, led by George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dressmaker, Russell Crowe's The Water Diviner, Stuart
Miller's action-adventure grossed $153.6 million in the U.S. while Crowe’s drama made $4.2 million. Genevieve Bailey's feature documentary I Am Eleven was a quiet achiever in the U.S. and there were limited releases for a bunch of titles including Charlie’s Country, Kill Me Three Times, Wyrmwood: Road to the Dead, 52 Tuesdays, Infini and Predestination.
Amazon Studios bought domestic rights to The Dressmaker, which stars Kate Winslet as a woman who returns to her rural hometown to reconnect with her ailing mother and to exact revenge on the community that banished her as a child. Broad Green Pictures will release the 1950s-set drama, which co-stars Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving and Sarah Snook, on 300 screens in all key cities on September 23. The SVoD premiere will follow 45 days later.
Lionsgate will open Gibson’s WW2 drama, which stars Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Rachel Griffiths, Richard Roxburgh, Teresa Palmer and Ryan Corr, on November 4.
The Weinstein Co. will launch Lion, the true story of an Indian-born Australian who found his birth mother 25 years after they were separated, starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara, on November 25.
Chapman and O’Donohue saw Stone’s stage play The Wild Duck, itself a reinterpretation of Ibsen's opus, which had been performed in Sydney, London, Vienna and Norway, and decided to work together on the film. They raised the $A5.5 million budget from Screen Australia, state agency Screen NSW, the 40% producer tax offset, Perth-based private investor Kazstar, Australian distributor Roadshow, Mongrel International and post house The Gingerbread Man. It grossed a respectable $A1.8 million in Oz after screening to general acclaim at a dozen film festivals including Sydney, Venice, Toronto and London.
Mongrel International sold the film to 45 territories including the U.K. (Metrodome), Germany (Arsenal), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Scandinavia (41 Shadows), Israel (Lev Cinemas), Poland (Hagi), Portugal (Outsider), Turkey (Fabula), South Korea (Movement) and the Middle East (Italia).
"We are delighted to be working with Kino Lorber on the U.S. release of The Daughter since they have chosen to distribute many films which we admire," Chapman and O'Donohue said. "We really look forward to American audiences experiencing our film."
Rush plays Henry, a wealthy widower in a timber town who is about to remarry the much younger Anna (Anna Torv). His son Christian (Paul Schneider) returns home from the U.S. for the wedding and discovers his father has just closed the timber mill, tossing out the workers. As Christian renews acquaintance with his childhood friend Oliver (Ewen Leslie) and gets to know his schoolteacher wife (Miranda Otto), their teenage daughter Hedvig (Odessa Young) and Oliver's father Walter (Sam Neill), he discovers a secret that could tear Oliver’s family apart.
A best pic Oscar nominee for Jane Campion’s The Piano, Chapman is developing several projects including High Season, a drama from writer-director Cate Shortland (Lore, the upcoming Berlin Syndrome) about an ex-pat Australian woman in Bali who reconnects with her estranged 18-year-old son, and a TV adaptation of Andrew Bovell’s play When The Rain Stops Falling for the BBC.
O'Donohue is preparing The Seed, a movie inspired by the real-life story of three generations of the family of Australian writer/actress Kate Mulvany (The Great Gatsby, The Little Death), adapted from Mulvany's play of the same title.
The Australia cinema industry can look forward to ending the year on a high note with the December 26 premiere of Red Dog: True Blue, Kriv Stenders' prequel to his 2011 hit Red Dog.
