Took 7 years to make.
Made a clean sweep of the Australian Film Institute awards in 2004 to win in all 13 film categories - the first time this has ever occurred in the award's history. It beat the previous record of eleven AFI awards by The Piano (1993).
Was originally going to be filmed predominantly in and around Canberra and nearby Lake George, but the ongoing drought on Australia's eastern seaboard meant that the lake was totally dry. Being that a body of water is a focal point for the film, the setting was changed to Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains, where the drought's effects were not as severe.
The coach that Heidi boards to take her to Jindabyne is shown to depart from the Belconnen bus interchange in North Canberra (there is a bit of artistic license at work here as the Belconnen interchange only deals with Canberra's internal bus service).