The Lost Tiger opens with an abandoned joey, Teo, discovered and adopted by Kara and Red, the kangaroo duo at the heart of a travelling wrestling troupe. Under director and co‑writer Chantelle Murray’s guidance, the film positions this makeshift family against sweeping bushland vistas crafted by Like a Photon Creative. As Australia’s first animated feature written and directed by an Indigenous woman, it stakes a claim for fresh perspectives in global animation.

Murray’s narrative choice—a thylacine protagonist raised by macropods—echoes themes in parallel cinemas worldwide that explore hybrid identities. Teo’s wonder at museum exhibits, where Rhys Darby’s Plato identifies him as one of the last Tasmanian tigers, shifts the tale from lighthearted spectacle to a meditation on lost heritage. This balance of playful wrestling sequences and weighty cultural inquiry reminds viewers of recent world‑cinema efforts to blend genre entertainment with deeper questions of belonging.