Interview of Tosca Looby by Ella Katz

Tosca Looby a creative director, writer and producer of factual programming and has made a cross section of Northern Pictures’ most celebrated and awarded output, including: Asking For It, Strong Female Lead, See What You Made Me Do and Magical Land of Oz.

Trained in journalism and programme making, Tosca uses deft storytelling to create compelling, challenging series and ‘one offs’, including thesis driven examinations of our most pressing social issues. She is also a seasoned producer of natural history and even side steps into arts programming for a little light relief!

Rape, deepfake porn and misogyny in schools: Jess Hill’s new SBS documentary examines how Australians’ attitudes towards sex and consent are being shaped

sking For It is not all dispiriting, despite its sometimes confronting content and shocking statistics. As with Hill’s previous series, Asking For It is sobering, but must-watch viewing.

In 2021 Jess and the team from Northern Pictures journeyed into Australian homes to explore a national crisis, domestic abuse, with See What You Made Me Do. In this bold, new, thesis driven series, Jess will use first-person testimony to explore the status of consent in Australia, following an explosive year of this issue in the headlines.

See What You Made Me Do is one of six outstanding documentaries have been longlisted for the 2021 Walkley Documentary Award. All six films tackle different themes, are in different styles and highlight different modes of documentary storytelling, but all help to showcase the very best in Australian long-form journalism.

Strong Female Lead is in competition for the Documentary Australia Foundation (DAF) Award for Australian Documentary at this year’s Sydney Film Festival.

Strong Female Lead nominated for Best Documentary at the 2021 AACTA Awards

Jess Hill has spent the past seven years reporting on domestic abuse, recognised for her book See What You Made Me Do. This month sees the release of a three-part docuseries bearing the same name. She writes here about why it’s crucial for Australia to criminalise coercive control and how we can harness positive change seen overseas.

Reading the book was harrowing, upsetting, yet critical, and as Lucy Clark writes in The Guardian, “…seeing it brought to life on the screen, with the raw power of people talking to camera, adds a gripping, heart-in-mouth dimension.”

See What You Made Me Do makes for confronting viewing — it is a problem that involves people all around us in the community. As Hill tells us, there are three million Australian adults and children who are victims of domestic abuse.

The series is by turns sobering, heartbreaking and infuriating. At the risk of hyperbole and cliche, it should also be must-watch viewing, despite how much of it makes for difficult watching.

SBS has selected Northern Pictures’ Strong Female Lead as part of its Australia Uncovered partnership with the Documentary Australia Foundation (DAF). Australia Uncovered is a new strand of one-off docs for the broadcaster, with a focus on uncovering unique stories of contemporary Australia, due to air in 2021.