Just over a year ago, The Hanging Garden, a first feature from Halifax filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald, opened the Perspective Canada program at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film captured critical acclaim, a $750,000 u.s. theatrical deal from MGM Classics, the festival’s People’s Choice Award, and shared the Toronto-City Award for best Canadian feature with The Sweet Hereafter.

Since then, a 40-city Canadian theatrical release through Odeon Films wrapped in April with a box-office total of just under $1 million. A u.s. opening, which began May 8, continues to unspool in smaller markets, with cumulative box office results of $500,000 to date.

Forty overseas territories have been sold by Alliance International, all for theatrical release except Latin America, where a tv deal is pending, and France, where Arte will broadcast but a theatrical window is still a possibility.

Theatrical releases have finished running in South Africa, Spain and the u.k. following a spring opening, and the film continues to hold in Israel where it opened July 16.

Upcoming releases for fall ’98 are in Finland, Italy, Norway and Russia. The Hanging Garden opens in Australia on Dec. 24.