From Crocodile Dundee to Baz Luhrmann's Australia, Northern Territory landscapes have featured on the international stage but for a long time it has been mainly "outsiders" who have had the resources to produce films in the NT.

Key points: Films about or featuring the Northern Territory have often been created by outsiders producing "weird and not-so-wonderful" results, according to one Alice Springs filmmaker

Films about or featuring the Northern Territory have often been created by outsiders producing "weird and not-so-wonderful" results, according to one Alice Springs filmmaker Writer and actor Trisha Morton-Thomas said NT films needed to be authentic in order to return benefits to the community

Writer and actor Trisha Morton-Thomas said NT films needed to be authentic in order to return benefits to the community Recent investment from the NT Government has allowed more local screen projects to take hold and NT films reach international audiences

Trisha Morton-Thomas is one of a handful of Territory-born filmmakers hoping a new generation of writers, directors and actors will be able to share true Top End stories with the rest of the world.

"My family have been Territorians, for hundreds and thousands of generations," she said.

"It's incredibly important that Territorians tell Territory stories.

"Otherwise we end up with these weird and sometimes not-so-wonderful films made from filmmakers outside of the Territory.

"We can make our own weird and wonderful stuff that is authentic, feels authentic, and looks authentic."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 2 minutes 38 seconds 2 m 38 s Is the Northern Territory film industry the next big thing in screen? ( Screen Territory )

Territory filmmakers head to the Cannes

Growing up in and around Alice Springs, the Anmatyerre woman never imagined a career that would take her to Cannes, France and allow her pitch ideas at the largest content market in the world.

Territorian Trisha Morton-Thomas is an Alice Springs filmmaker who writes, directs and also acts in film and TV. ( ABC News: Andy Hyde )

"I'm quite idealistic and I think too much, so I never, ever thought that I would be at this point in my career," Ms Morton-Thomas said.

"You're meeting with the big guns. You're meeting with international players who really understand this industry and really can move your career forward, and your projects forward."

She travelled alongside four other Territory filmmakers as part of a Screen Territory delegation to the Marche International des Programmes de Communication (MIPCOM) last month, held annually in the town most famous for its association with the Cannes International Film Festival.

This conference was a chance for filmmakers and producers to connect with distributors, streaming platforms and financiers, with Ms Morton-Thomas and her business partner at Brindle Films, Rachel Clements, confident they had laid the groundwork for a drama series to be produced in two years' time.

NT filmmakers Bridget May, Trisha Morton-Thomas and Rachel Clements attended MIPCOM in Cannes as part of a Screen Territory delegation. ( ABC News: Andy Hyde )

Ms Clements said that despite the challenges, remoteness being one, the NT has some genuine advantages that help it to compete in the global screen industry.

"One of the international catchcries at the moment is unique access and unique vision and that is what we have in the Territory, we have access and content that no-one else in the world has," she said.

"We're primed in the Northern Territory to really punch up and punch forward within the international market and you can only really do that with a presence at a market like this."

Government stimulus package helps develop NT talent

A bipartisan election commitment in 2016 saw the NT Government deliver a $9 million injection of funds to the local screen industry, to be distributed over four years (until 2020).

The hope was that this money would provide sustainability in an industry known for losing talented filmmakers to the economic opportunities of the southern states, with names like Rachel Perkins (Total Control, Redfern Now) and Warwick Thornton (Sweet Country, Samson and Delilah) having now left the Territory.

"You have these incredibly gifted filmmakers who can't work from the Territory because the support is not there, so they leave us to go and work and live down south," Ms Morton-Thomas said.

"So whatever skills the Territory builds in our film practitioners, if the support is not there, and the funding is not there, we are going to be constantly losing them to the southern states."

Almost 14,000 people attend the world's largest entertainment content market, held annually in the resort town of Cannes. ( ABC News: Andy Hyde )

But Ms Morton-Thomas said, with the right level of government support, filmmakers like her will have a better chance of make a living from telling Territory stories, and three years into the new government funding, the industry is already seeing promising results.

2019 has been a successful year for NT on screen, with Miranda Tapsell's Top End Wedding and Maya Newell's In My Blood It Runs premiering locally and internationally to critical acclaim.

Ms Morton-Thomas said Screen Territory has given sorely needed opportunities to young and novice filmmakers, helping bring skills and tourism to the Territory, and she is hopeful this will continue.

"I think there's a lot of young people [in the Territory] that are interested in getting into film, or drama," she said.