Bohemia Originals Snaps up “the Denniston Rose”

Bohemia Originals Snaps up New Zealand #1 Best Seller
“the Denniston Rose”

Auckland, New Zealand (April 4, 2018) – Susan Ferris, CEO of Bohemia Group Originals (BGO) along with Maggie Seeman, Executive producer, has optioned rights to New Zealand’s number 1 bestselling novel, ‘The Denniston Rose’ by award-winning author Jenny Pattrick O.B.E. The acclaimed historical novelist’s title is among New Zealand’s biggest-selling novels.

“Jenny Pattrick is one of New Zealand’s most popular contemporary novelists, and I am so pleased to be turning her bestselling novel into a film for all to enjoy,” said Bohemia Group Originals CEO, Susan Ferris. “From the beginning it was clear to me that, although our head office is in Hollywood, we wanted to keep the project within the realms of its homeland of New Zealand.”

“Denniston Rose encapsulates a real beginning of New Zealand mining-miners who came from Ireland, Wales and England,” said Buller Mayor Garry Howard. “It was the birth of the West Coast, a New Zealand story. The miners came out of the gold rush and went into black coal mining.”

“Guiding multi-day tours in the Kahurangi National Park, I marveled at how the women 100 years ago managed to provide a lifestyle for the mining community in such a harsh and hostile environment. While reading The Denniston Rose I was able to connect and be inspired by the rawness through Jenny’s story-telling. I had that lightbulb moment of this story needs to be on the screen for the rest of the world to share, and for the good it will bring on all sorts of levels. It’s about community.” said Maggie Seeman.

The project, which is being spearheaded from Bohemia’s Auckland offices by Executive Vice President, International Alison B. Buck, along with local producer Maggie Seeman, is set in the 1880’s on a bleak coal-mining settlement of Denniston, an isolated high on a plateau above New Zealand's West Coast, and a place that makes or breaks those who live there. Into this chaotic community come five-year-old Rose and her mother. No one knows what has driven them there, but most agree the mother must be desperate to choose Denniston; worse, to choose that drunkard Jimmy Cork as a bedfellow. The mother has her reasons and her plans, which she tells no one. The indomitable Rose is left to fend for herself, struggling to secure a place in this tough and often aggressive community. The Denniston Rose is about isolation and survival. It is the story of a spirited child, who, in appalling conditions, remains a survivor.

Hailing from Wellington, Jenny Pattrick has published eight novels to date. The Denniston Rose (2003) and its sequel, Heart of Coal (2004), are among New Zealand’s biggest-selling novels and have been republished in illustrated editions. In 1990 she was awarded the OBE for services to the arts. She has received the New Zealand Post Katherine Mansfield Prize, and is featured in the Wellington Girls’ College Hall of Fame.

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