All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane, a film by Louise Alston

2 June 2025

All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane is the sequel to rom-com All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane, made in 2007, also directed by Australian filmmaker Louise Alston. The story to Leaving Brisbane, which was also Alston’s debut feature, goes something like this:

Anthea is 25, single and hates her job — and all her friends are leaving Brisbane. Should she follow the herd to the big city? Is there anything worth staying for now that her best friend Michael finally has a girlfriend?

All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane, however, is not a linear sequel. Alston refers to it as a “spiritual” sequel, which tells the story of a woman, Cris, who returns to Brisbane after ten years in London:

Cris returns to Brisbane after being in London for a decade, having just been dumped by her fiancé. She finds herself working alongside her ex who refused to leave Brisbane to be with her ten years ago, and is now married with a child.

I’m yet to see Leaving Brisbane, though I did catch Alston’s 2010 feature, Jucy, at the sadly defunct Australian Film Festival in 2011.

There’s also a few crossovers between Jucy and Back in Brisbane in Nelle Lee, who co-starred in the former, and Stephen Vagg, Alston’s husband, who wrote the screenplays for both, plus of course Leaving Brisbane. No word yet as to when it will screen in cinemas, Back in Brisbane is presently in post-production, but I’ve read sometime in 2025.