Following a substantial push by Seville Pictures, Partition managed respectable receipts over its opening weekend, earning $98,961 on 28 screens at the Canuck box office.

The historical drama — about a star-crossed couple in 1940s India, played by Vancouver native Kristin Kreuk and Britain’s Jimi Mistry — had a nationwide per-screen average of $3,534 in markets including Montreal, Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver. Sales at the Paramount theater in Vancouver topped all other locations, generating more than $8,000 over the weekend.

The $10-million film is directed by Vic Sarin and arrived in theaters on Feb. 2 with a $400,000 promotional push from Seville.

‘[The overall box office is] slightly lower than we expected, but we are quite happy with the numbers in Vancouver. One of our main goals was to reach the South Asian community and it looks like we were able to do so,’ says Seville spokesperson Ariane Giroux-Dallaire.

Partition will open in one additional market in Victoria, BC on Feb. 16.

‘The reason for the delay is that we didn’t want to compete with the Victoria Film Festival, which is on right now. We wanted to wait until after the festival, which already showcases a lot of Canadian films,’ explains Giroux-Dallaire.

Partition has no U.S. distributor attached and Myriad Pictures is handling international sales.