General News
18 October, 2025
Dressed for success: The Dressmaker movie marks 10 years
On October 18, 2015, the Wimmera Mallee revealed a cheekily quirky side of itself on the big screen.
With Hollywood names Kate Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving heading the cast, The Dressmaker was unveiled to Australia in a red-carpet gala at Crown Casino, Melbourne.
The feature film had had its international premiere a month earlier, on September 14 2015, in Toronto, Canada, so by October 18, the industry was abuzz with expectation.
Produced by Sue Maslin and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, it was the adaptation of a Gothic novel of the same name by Riverina-bred author Rosalie Ham.
Raised in Jerilderie, Ham created her delightfully dysfunctional characters and their dusty bush town for a creative writing assignment while at university.
Myrtle ‘Tilly’ Dunnage (Winslet) arrives back in Dungatar as a skilled seamstress, having been spirited away in murky circumstances many years earlier after a childhood tragedy.
Her mother, Molly (Davis), is both uncooperative and unimpressed by her return.
Far more supportive is Tilly’s old school friend turned football hero Teddy (Hemsworth), who works to repair the relationship, with the help of eccentric town policeman Sergeant Farrat (Weaving).
In 2014, when planning the cinematic project, rather than have sets built to order on a studio lot, the team chose to utilise scenery across the Wimmera in some of the most pivotal moments.
This region contributed a string of real-life locations, including the grain silos at Jung, in which a budding romance between Tilly and Teddy takes a heart-wrenching twist.
Scenes were also shot at Sailors Home Hall at Murra Warra, Jung (Jerro) Cemetery, Longerenong Homestead near Horsham, and the Mechanics Institute Hall in Murtoa (which doubles as the theatre of Dungatar’s neighbour and rival, Wynyerp).
Filming in the Wimmera took place in the second week of December 2014 – nine months before The Dressmaker’s Toronto screening.
One of the main scenes is centred on Jung Recreation Reserve, where audiences see a football match between Dungatar and Wynyerp being disrupted by the provocative posing of Tilly on the boundary.
Locals stepped in to serve as extras both in the crowd and on the field, and again at Longerenong, where wedding preparations and a reception were filmed.
Oven Door Bakery in Horsham is credited with having provided the lavish spread of 1950s-style pavlovas and fruit-topped trifles that awaited guests at the homestead.
Making use of existing buildings and infrastructure in regional areas as backdrops not only minimises costs to producers but leaves behind a ready-made trail of sites to draw in fans of the finished product.
Financially, in The Dressmaker’s case, this was a win-win for the project’s financiers and for businesses across the Wimmera Mallee.
On October 29 2015, The Dressmaker was released commercially in cinemas.
Shot on a budget of just under $12 million, by the end of 2015 it had generated $25 million in box offices worldwide, including in countries as diverse as Portugal, Italy and Israel.
It was critically acclaimed, winning five Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts awards, and was voted the favourite Australian film of its year.
It also created yet one more reason for travellers to make the journey to western Victoria, in this instance in search of the silos, the cemetery, the homestead, the hall and the wide-open landscape they’d seen on screen.
[CROSSHEAD]Literary roots
The Dressmaker was first published as a novel on New Year’s Day 2000.
A second edition, featuring a photo of Winslet in Dressmaker couture on the cover, was released in 2015.
Together, they have sold more than 250,000 copies and been translated into languages including German and French.
[CROSSHEAD]Wider film fame
The Dressmaker certainly wasn’t the Wimmera’s first brush with entertainment-industry fame, nor has it been the region’s last silver-screen outing.
In 1979, a generation before the book behind The Dressmaker was conceived, Dimboola and its surrounds were featured in the eponymous comedy by Australian director John Duigan.
Filming took place in Dimboola and Jeparit, tracing the shenanigans that ensue as an English journalist played by Max Gillies arrives to witness a local wedding.
In 2009, Mt Arapiles became part of Where the Wild Things Are, from the beloved children’s book by Maurice Sendak.
More recently, in 2020, the Wimmera Mallee provided various locations for The Dry, based on Jane Harper’s novel of the same name and completed in early 2021.
In The Dry, Beulah stars as the fictional Kiewarra, boyhood home of a federal detective (played by Eric Bana) whose trip back for a funeral takes a murderous turn.
Both Beulah’s main street and its cemetery are recognisable, as is the pub in Minyip (already renowned as part of Cooper’s Crossing in The Flying Doctors TV series) and Hopetoun Neighbourhood House (which doubles as Kiewarra’s school).
[CROSSHEAD]Before and after
Anyone interested in learning more about one of The Dressmaker’s most intriguing characters can find its paperback prequel in Yarriambiack Shire’s libraries.
Written like the original by Ham, the novel Molly explores the life of Tilly’s mother Molly Dunnage in 1914 when as an independent and idealistic young woman she sets up a corsetry business in pre-war Melbourne.
And Tilly herself isn’t forgotten, either: her own story continues in The Dressmaker’s Secret, also by Ham and published in 2020.
In this sequel, set in 1953, the saga of Tilly and her former neighbours continues from the point at which she left the remains of Dungatar smouldering in her wake.
* What are your memories of The Dressmaker’s time in the Wimmera Mallee? Did you meet Kate or Liam, or perhaps you made a cameo? Have you had visitors ask for directions to one of the sites? Share your experience with us: rosalea.ryan@wmnews.com.au.
