Established in 1972 with the name of “Australian Film and Television School” as part of the Commonwealth Government’s strategy to promote the development of Australia’s cultural activity, AFTRS was opened to students in 1973 with the first intake of 12 students including directors Gillian Armstrong, Phillip Noyce and Chris Noonan. In 1973 Jerzy Toeplitz was appointed Foundation Director of the School and after six years in the role was awarded the Order of Australia and the AFI’s Longford Lyell Award. In 1975 Gough Whitlam helped to create funding agencies to support the film school.

The Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) is Australia’s national screen arts and broadcast school. The school is an Australian Commonwealth government statutory authority. It is a member of Arts8, the Australian Roundtable for Arts Training Excellence. AFTRS is the nation’s premier screen arts and broadcast school – the only Australian education institution to consistently make The Hollywood Reporter‘s prestigious annual list of the top film schools in the world.

For many years AFTRS was located in purpose-built premises at North Ryde, Sydney. In 2008 the school relocated to a purpose-built facility adjacent to Fox Studios, located inside the Entertainment Quarter in Moore Park Sydney.

AFTRS is the only screen and broadcast school in the world to cater for all of the specialisations under the one roof. The campus includes: a Full size 5.1 sound theatre (seats 126), state-of-the-art mix theatre, two large professional film and television studios, film studios, state-of-the-art sound recording studios, ten sound editing suites, four screen music composition suites, offline and online editing suites, Video-post department that provides broadcast quality dubbing, HD Avid Adrenaline online editing, Scenarist DVD authoring, web streaming and multicam production services, computer labs, tech store, props store & costume support, Grip trucks with Movietech Arco dolly and accessories, Stand-by Props truck, production design construction workshop, three on-air digital radio broadcasting studios.

Also located on campus is The Jerzy Toeplitz Library, which boasts an extensive and unique collection of items both on-premises and online. On-site, the library holds over 44,000 items, including over 17,000 DVDs, Blu-rays and VHS tapes, 20,000 books and e-books, 3,000 film and television scripts and screenplays, and every AFTRS student film ever made. Online, there are over 75,000 streaming videos.