By Erin Free
“You’ll be charmed. You’ll be dismayed. And then I bet you’ll be as angry as hell.” Like so many things said by Australia’s writing great Tim Winton, the acclaimed author’s ringing endorsement of the new documentary The Koalas is bang on the money. A hard-hitting look at the current crisis encircling Australia’s koalas due to rapid development, unbridled land-clearing, vigorous environmental change, and the increase in natural hazards like bushfire and flood, the dire situation showcased in The Koalas will leave the viewer shuddering quietly in shock. The fact that we as a nation have done so little to protect one of our most beloved and iconic native animals is literally astounding.
The fight to turn this apathy around has now been taken on by documentary filmmakers Georgia Wallace-Crabbe and Gregory Miller, who collaborate frequently and effectively through their production company Film Projects. No strangers to both environmental calamity (2018’s powerful Cultivating Murder, which examines the tragic murder of environment officer Glen Turner) and iconic Australiana (2013’s Breaker Morant: The Retrial and 2004’s Besieged: The Ned Kelly Story), the duo takes a deep, incisive look at the desperate problems facing our koalas across multiple locations and multiple issues across east coast Australia, telling powerful stories of individual koalas, and the dedicated, committed people fighting to keep them alive.
A quietly passionate and deeply educational call to arms, The Koalas has another iconic champion alongside Tim Winton, with famed environmentalist and former politician Bob Brown getting behind the project. “If we can’t save the koala, then what hope is there for us humans?” he asks. “The fate of the koala is tied very much up with ours. And here’s a magnificent movie which charts the life of koalas, even as the human threat to them grows.”
Co-creator Georgia Wallace-Crabbe takes us through some of the struggles faced during the making of the film, while also driving home the urgency of its message…
What was the impetus behind The Koalas? What got the project started?
“The film started out of our previous documentary Cultivating Murder (2018), which looked at habitat loss and the murder of an environment officer in Moree in 2014. Glen Turner was shot by a disgruntled farmer frustrated over prosecution for illegal land-clearing. The film focussed on habitat loss and the wind-back of NSW Native Vegetation Protection laws. We saw koalas getting smashed in Western NSW in that film…smashed by heat, drought, loss of habitat, and land-clearing. Then the catastrophic fires of 2019/20 wiped out a third of NSW koalas. We watched as the world became concerned about our threatened species, but then Covid hit and the focus shifted away from threatened species. The decline, however, continued. We were all at home in lockdown and koalas kept popping up in our area in southern Sydney. People had never seen koalas there before. It turned out there was a healthy koala colony in south-western Sydney. It was disease-free and expanding, but now it was getting smashed by land-clearing for development and the koalas were getting hit on roads. We heard the minister of the day say, ‘Yes, that colony will be lost, but there are others elsewhere that will survive.’ But that was a really important colony, so we started to make the film about that story. Four years later, the land-clearing has continued, despite koalas being uplifted to Endangered.”
Can you take us a little through the funding process? Was it a tough sell?
“We didn’t get conventional funding. The film was crowdfunded with grants and donations through Documentary Australia and then retrospective funding from Screen Australia when we got a distributor on board. We did what is called Impact Producing, so we engaged with audiences throughout the filmmaking process so they know about the film on its release. We screened rough cuts and trailers to audiences to build awareness for the release.”
Was the nation-hopping format always intended, or did that style develop during production?
“It evolved as the film developed, as we started with the story of the south-western Sydney colony, and the film’s title was The Koala Corridor. Then it turns out there aren’t many ‘koala corridors’, and local people fighting for their local koala corridor or wildlife corridor, so we now talk about connectivity of landscape, and it expanded. People understand it’s the same issue everywhere…and not just for koalas. It’s affecting other endangered animals like Greater Gliders, Squirrel Gliders, certain species of frogs, swift parrots, Glossy Black Cockatoos…we are in an Extinction Crisis. Australia has the highest rate of extinction of mammals in the world by a long shot. So, it’s a national story.”
The current and quite dire plight of the koala was shocking to see…were you fully aware of this, or were you a little taken aback yourselves?
“We’d made a film previously about the critical situation that koalas faced, and it only got worse across that time.”
The passion and dedication of those caring for and protecting the koalas was so inspiring. Was meeting these folks a highlight of the project for you?
“I think so. Getting close to the animals was also inspiring. Having only ever seen koalas in the wild once or twice, it was inspiring to see the dedication of the vets, rescuers and carers, but for anyone who loves animals, you can see the bond between the carers and the koalas. The people even started looking like koalas to us. Each koala has a distinct face and personality, and we tried to reflect that in how we told the film, with koala stories at the forefront. It was also a way to create empathy for audiences.”
How dire do you believe it is for our koalas? Can this be turned around?
“It’s very dire. We wouldn’t have dedicated four years to making the film if we didn’t want to take the issue to the widest audience, and an international audiences. Koalas are predicted to become extinct in the wild by 2050, and nothing that is being done so far is turning that around. It needs intervention at the highest level. There needs to be federal legislation to protect the Koala and even give the iconic national icon rights…like they gave rights to a river in New Zealand. Humans are in real trouble if we can’t maintain enough habitat for our native species to survive.”
What was your biggest challenge on the project?
“The financing, maintaining the commitment over a long period of time (across Covid), and experiencing the trauma being experienced by animal carers. Trying to make a film with an environmental message was challenging in the current media landscape: broadcasters are scared of environmental films and one-offs. The feature documentary length and the cinema space is the one remaining space where we can bring audiences to a complex, multilayered story, and to see a film that they want to see without gatekeepers stopping the film from being seen, or made. And the audience will experience the unfolding story – which is a complex story – told over 90 minutes, which allows them to enter into the multi-character and multi-layered storytelling and stay with it to the end. So, finding the shape of the film was a challenge, and we had test screenings, and kept filming through the edit, to keep the story up-to-date. There were multiple challenges.”
Your films are all highly topical…do you ever get a little nervous wading into the middle of such big issues?
“We made market driven films for many years, and now we want to make important films that tell urgent stories. The big issues are the issues of our times: climate change, habitat loss, extinction crisis. A film like this is not meant to preach to the converted; it’s intended to bring the widest audience to an understanding of how extinction happens and make them feel empowered by that knowledge. The media and the news cycle doesn’t do that. Documentary films can do that.”
What do you hope will be the main takeaway for audiences after seeing the film?
“We hope the audience will understand that we cannot entrust the survival of our iconic species to government agencies, politicians, developers or even scientists alone. Because in economic rationalist times, the government may not have the power to make the change that is needed to protect nature. We need farmers, developers, and the general public to all be obligated to protect nature, and we need strong environment protection and land management laws, and this requires public engagement to see that our representatives are acting properly on our behalf. For example, the koala is endangered, but that doesn’t mean it will be protected any more than before: the chief scientists have given guidelines for housing developments like the ones in south-western Sydney, that requires a certain amount of habitat is left in corridors of a certain minimum width, and yet the DA is approved without the condition being met. There is no-one to appeal and no proper appeal process. As Elizabeth Farrelly says in the film: ‘It comes down to cronyism…who are the mates who have access? And if we buy the lies that they tell us about what they are doing to preserve nature, and if we allow them to get away with that, then they will.’ We hope the film will have an impact and help turn this around, by getting people angry and getting them involved.”
Do you have any upcoming projects you can talk about?
“Releasing the film is a major project in itself. So, no, we’re not ready to talk about future projects, but there will always be more projects…”
The Koalas is screening at Village Cinemas Albury, Geelong, Bendigo, Karingal, Knox, Morwell, Southland and Sunshine on 8 and 10 August, tix here. United Cinemas Blue Mountains (The Edge) on 8-11 August, tix here. Fays’ Twin Taree on 11 August, tix here; and Gympie Cinemas on 12 August, tix here.
For Bob Brown’s endorsement of The Koalas, click here.
