“People are ready to go and watch films that are built around strong,transformative,unpredictable performances,” he says. “That’s the cinema I love.”

Wright also believes there is a taste for difficult material in films that is often under-appreciated.

“It’s not an easy film to watch,but I think it’s satisfying in a classical narrative sense,” he says. “It’s a work of real narrative ambition and scale … And what’s immensely exciting is that it shows there’s an international appetite for Australian cinema.”

So,is streaming now the best platform for art-house Australian films?

One ofThe Stranger’s producers,Emile Sherman,said last month that “it’s fair to say that the cinema[being] a primary place to see movies is a thing of the past for the independent sector”.

As Wright points out,leading directors as Martin Scorsese,Alfonso Cuaron,Jane Campion and Andrew Dominik are now making films for Netflix. Although he did like thatThe Stranger had a short cinema season before streaming.

“All filmmakers want to see their work projected on the cinema screen,and I’m thankful that we had that opportunity,” he says. “But maybe something about the claustrophobia of the film,the intensity of the film,the fact that it’s about a kind of exterior violence making its way inside the home and inside the mind of the central character,has really resonated on[Netflix].”

While the Morcombe family has protested about what they consideredexploitation of their son’s story,Wright says that after contacting the family to tell them about the film three years ago,he has always respected their right not to be involved.

“This is a fictional retelling of a police operation,” he says. “There’s no representation of the victim,no representation of those who cared for them. It’s about individuals who never met them but sacrificed years of their life and their mental and physical health for these strangers.”

A cultural guide to going out and loving your city. Sign up to our Culture Fix newsletterhere.