Little Fish has had the biggest opening for an Australian filmthis year in its home territory.

Director Rowan Woods' secondfilm grossed $502,000 (A$655,672) in the week to September 14, coming seventhin the film chart.

Distributor Icon says thisresult is comparable to Lantanaand Japanese Story, which went onto gross $9.4m and $3.5m respectively for Palace.

Icon plans to push printnumbers up from its opening tally of 45 to some 60 prints.

The film's screen average of$11,200 was only beaten by the IMAX film Wild Safari and the Indian film Salaam Namaste, which were on two and nine screens respectively.

"We will expand, but cautiously, because we are conscious ofthe film we have and because school holidays are upon us and that takes up morescreen space," said Icon chief executive Mark Gooder. "The campaign makesaudiences feel like this is an important film that they should see. It hasfound its audience. Now it will find a broader audience. This week will be atelling week."

Little Fish stars Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett and hasgarnered a lot of media attention in its home market. Other contributingfactors have been the strong performance of Hugo Weaving and the criticalacclaim of Woods' first film The Boys.