It started with Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Toni Collette, and Hugh Jackman. And moves like The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Muriel’s Wedding and Strictly Ballroom. On the 30^th anniversary screening of the Baz Luhrmann classic, Strictly Ballroom at the Toronto Film Festival, a huge group of Australian talent gathered to celebrate the ongoing relationship with this prestigious festival.

The 2022 Australian contingent at TIFF includes the international premiere of the First Nations anthology feature, We Are Still Here, which played in the Contemporary World Cinema program; the third season of the acclaimed indigenous TV series Mystery Road: Origin, screening in the Primetime Program, and indigenous writer/director Jub Clerc’s feature film debut, Sweet As, and Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen, to both play in the Discovery strand.

Other Australian projects getting buzz during the festival include writer/director/producer Robert Connolly’s Blueback, starring Mia Wasikowska, which had its world premiere in the Special Presentations strand, and Connolly, whose credits include Lantana and The Dry also produced Emily, the story of author Emily Bronte, which marked the first filmmaking credit as writer-director for Aussie actress, Frances O’Connor.

“I’m proud to be opening the Platform section of TIFF,” O’Connor told the packed audience at the premiere. “I’ve loved Emily Bronte all my life on a super geeky kind of level and I’m standing here like a proud mother hoping you like my baby too.”

We Are Still Here is a collaboration between filmmakers across Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the South Pacific and weaves together eight shorts touching on kinship, loss, grief, and resilience. It began as part of a Screen Australia and New Zealand Film Commission initiative to give indigenous filmmakers the opportunity to respond to the 250^th anniversary of James Cook’s arrival. Eventually, the project shifted away from a focus on Cook and colonization and began exploring stories of First Nations people told through eight heroic characters.

Screen Australia also hosted a star-studded party that highlighted not just Australia’s official TIFF entries but also to highlight the impressive list of Australians in non-Australian productions at TIFF, including Russell Crowe (The Greatest Beer Run Ever), Hugh Jackman (The Son), Samara Weaving, Alex Fitzalan and production designer Karen Murphy (Chevalier), editor Lee Smith (Empire of Light), DOP Ari Wegner (The Wonder), Adelaide Clemens (The Swearing Jar), Jacki Weaver (Wildflower), DOP Nicola Daley (The Handmaid’s Tale), DOP Lachlan Milne (The Inspection), writer-director Michael Spiccia (the short film, I’m on Fire) and director Rudolf Fitzgerald Leonard (director of short, Beben)

Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason was thrilled with the wealth of Aussie talent in the spotlight at the world’s most prestigious film festival. “It’s particularly special to have three projects offering First Nations perspectives showcased on a world stage,” he adds. “We also know that TIFF has a history launching the careers of many first-time Australian directors, so we’re thrilled to see Jub Clerc’s debut feature, Sweet As, along with Dylan River’s first long-form series Mystery Road: Origin making their international debuts.”