"I’m very drawn to finding stories about women. I love working with actresses. I am a woman and therefore, I want to tell stories about what it’s like to be a woman and the sort of things that happen in a woman’s life and the domestic and hidden battles we face . People don’t write about the emotional wars we go through. As a female filmmaker, I’m naturally drawn to these stories, and I feel I have a duty to be making films that further the world’s understanding about what it is to be a woman. I really want to do that, I like doing it."
Filmmaker Jocelyn Moorhouse


Moorhouse spent nearly two decades away from the camera while she was raising her four children. "The Dressmaker", this week's featured film, was released in 2015 and was the highest grossing film in Australia that year. The cast, including Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, and Hugo Weaving, also won a slew of awards from both the Australian Film Academy and Australian film critics. As I write in my review, although this is a film by women, about women, for women, it does not go quite where you expect. "The Dressmaker" is emotional but unsentimental, and exhibits a particularly Australian sensibility. I loved it.

Moorhouse's next project is in the pre-production phases. She is again adapting a novel to the screen. In this case, Marlene van Niekerk's "Agaat". The story is set in South Africa during apartheid and concerns a young black woman who is adopted by a white family. The film's star is Sophie Okonedo. Moorhouse is also scheduled to direct a WWII film, written by Andrew Knight (who wrote "The Water Diviner" for Russell Crowe). Screen Australia will be developing and funding the project.

"Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits" is a photographic exhibit that opened on November 10th and will be on tour in Australia throughout 2018. The exhibit covers one hundred years of Australian film history and includes shots from "Muriel's Wedding" (directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse's husband, P.J. Hogan) and "The Dressmaker". If you search online using the exhibit's title, you can see some of the great photos.

Here's the latest article from the Drama Movies site at BellaOnline.com.

The Dressmaker Film Review
Kate Winslet delivers a tour de force as dressmaker Tilly Dunnage. Tilly returns to the small Australian town that branded her a murderer to exact revenge. Tragedy and comedy co-exist in Jocelyn Moorhouse's outstanding adaptation of Rosalie Ham's novel.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8346.asp

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Angela K. Peterson, Drama Movies Editor
http://dramamovies.bellaonline.com

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