Dollhouse Pictures adapts Bri Lee bestseller The Work for television

Bri Lee

Saskia Wilson

Australian production company Dollhouse Pictures has secured the screen rights to Bri Lee’s bestselling novel The Work, which it is developing as a television series.

Set across New York, Brisbane and Sydney, the novel follows an ambitious New York art gallery employee and a junior antiques appraiser in Sydney, whose long-distance relationship becomes increasingly complicated as their personal and professional lives collide in the competitive contemporary art world.

Screenwriter Hannah Lehmann has created the adaptation, with Lee and Dollhouse Pictures’ Jessica Carrera attached as executive producers. The project is in development with support from Screen Australia.

Published by Allen & Unwin, The Work became an Australian bestseller. Dollhouse Pictures said the adaptation will explore questions of power and privilege in the art world, alongside the tensions between career ambitions and romantic relationships.

Launched in 2015, Dollhouse Pictures is led by co-founders Rose Byrne, Krew Boylan, Shannon Murphy and Jessica Carrera.