by Christine Westwood
He has directed and produced some of Australia’s most iconic documentaries, from Paul Kelly – Stories of Me to The Final Quarter, which examined the public treatment of Adam Goodes, and a trio of films on youth welfare, including The Oasis about homeless youth in Sydney’s inner city.
Now, Ian Darling has turned his creative attention to another aspect of Australian culture, the Bondi Icebergs’ famous year-round swimming pool, with a documentary called The Pool, what else!?
“I hadn’t swam in that pool since the film I did on Paul Kelly [released in 2012],” he tells us after a morning dip at his own local pool in Adelaide’s leafy suburb of Norwood. “The Icebergs was Paul’s local swimming pool, where in the song ‘Deeper Water’ he says he always wanted to go in the deep end, but he was held in his father’s arms in the shallow end. We were talking to the local squad, and they were saying that there are so many pools being closed down in Adelaide and even Norwood pool is under threat as the councils aren’t backing them. We always try and do something with the films, so maybe we set up some campaign, ‘Save my local pool’ sort of thing. It’s so important to bring groups together for mental and physical health.”
The theme of social impact and philanthropy deeply informs Darling’s creative work, so it’s not surprising that he may seek to turn even this more aesthetically-based film into leverage for social change, though the idea for it didn’t start out that way.
“Coming out of post Covid and also after three years working on the Adam Goodes film and the films on child protection, we’d been dealing with some pretty heavy topics, and I was wondering if I was going to keep making documentaries. Turning 60, I had that sort of questioning. I ended up doing a play with a friend.”
The Twins was a two-hander with comedian Greg Fleet that struck a chord with theatregoers for its funny and moving story, but Darling was confronted by the challenge at first.
“We’d booked 85 performances and I came out of the first one thinking, ‘what am I doing, I can’t act, people are paying good money, there are real critics there…’ Anyway, it connected more than I thought but coming out of that I realised I really did want to keep making documentaries. I was looking to do something a little lighter, that could bring joy to audiences. Swimming is my main recreational activity, and I was sitting with a friend at Icebergs and she said, ‘well, what about this as a place for a story?’ Coming out of Covid, I think we valued community and connection a lot more because it had been taken away from us, and I thought Icebergs would be a great platform for that.”
During the 100 days of filming, the crew swam for 99 of them, a strategic move that helped them earn their stripes with the tough Icebergs regulars as well as adding the pleasure of the daily swim.
The result is highly cinematic, a large part of that down to cinematographer Ben Cunningham, a previous collaborator who is known for nature and landscape work. Darling knew Ben would bring a wildlife sensibility, appropriate for the theme of environment, where the pool is the central character.
“I didn’t want it to be an observational doco, I wanted it to be very planned so we would capture the magic of the place and moment. In true wildlife photographer style, you set up and wait patiently to capture moments of magic.
“We also got a lot of inspiration from some of the great sporting films. One of the greatest was the Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad (1965), it’s an absolute masterpiece. It’s non-traditional, he captured athletes looking like sculptures. Chariots of Fire drew on the same stylised forms of close-up details, duration and replay.”
With a resume filled with multi award winning films, and given an AO for his social impact contribution, how did it all begin for Darling? His origin story can be traced back to 1968 when he was 6. He remembers being asked by a friend of his grandfather, ‘What do you want to do?’ And he said ‘I want to make a film’.
“I don’t know where that came from. We lived in Melbourne, my parents took me to the theatre and I went with my grandmother to see films at Mornington. I remember seeing epic films like Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago. But there was no real arts background, I was always expected to go into business. I spent time in the States and did an MBA in Europe and set up an investment management firm, but I did always want to make films.”
It was a film about Warren Buffett that Darling saw as his opportunity to make the shift to live his passion.
“In 2000, I filmed Buffett’s shareholders weekend that he calls Woodstock for Capitalists. I realised, if you have a deep understanding of a subject, you make a great witness. In subsequent films, I had a deep interest, like the one on homelessness, The Oasis. I’d been volunteering in the shelter for many years, that gave me the in. Paul Kelly had been my favourite singer songwriter, I’d never met him before, but he spoke to me like no other singer. Adam Goodes was the same, when we did The Final Quarter, I’d never met him, but he was my favourite player. I’d watched him for 15 years and I remember thinking at the time, we could do a testimonial film of this great football player, but that ended up being a quite different film.
“Coming from the world of business, I wouldn’t say it was guilt, but if I was going to make a film, I felt I really needed to do something with it, and I had strong connections with the not-for-profit and philanthropic sectors. I saw I could use this to leverage not just for the film’s advantage but also the sector’s advantage.”
Traveling across the States in 2004 while filming, Darling saw a lot of films at festivals and realised how many documentaries were funded by donors and philanthropic organisations.
“That was am ‘Ah ha!’ moment, I came back in 2005 thinking that we’re doing it all wrong trying to get investment for documentaries, basically telling them I’ll guarantee you’re going to lose money on this! It was hardly a good pitch. But often, the same people who you’re asking to invest are the same people who are capable of making a philanthropic grant. I changed it to say ‘I’d love you to make a grant to this project and I can guarantee you a very high return on social capital for every dollar you put in, to create awareness, shift legislation and try and create change’.
“Once we set up the vehicle, which was Documentary Australia at the time, suddenly there was something where it was charitable organisation. It was around the time when An Inconvenient Truth came out and that was a great example of a philanthropically funded film. We needed a good Australian example and that’s what The Oasis became, where we made a report and affected government legislation.”
Darling’s current and ongoing next project is The Valley, focussing on the rural Kangaroo Valley community. His close-knit team are working together, with Cunningham as cinematographer and gifted editor Sally Fryer who Darling has collaborated with for 24 years. Darling’s Shark Island Institute is also in Kangaroo Valley, holding labs and workshops in the style of the Sundance Institute after Darling observed the power of getting filmmakers and artists together in the right environment.
About 100 days have been filmed for The Valley so far, and the project is revealing itself as an essay in how much time people in regional areas are alone and in their own world.
“We’ve spent time with the dairy farmer at 3am and 3pm and Jackie who’s mowing lawns and cleaning lavatories, honouring that. There are artists among a range of characters. They’re very different films but in one way, it’s like The Pool where it shows how human beings need connection. It’s exploring how people in a country town need to come in to Quiz Night or Karaoke Night or come together to community gardens and shows. So many banks and post offices have closed down, the local post office or store were really important meeting places. It’s very simple, but for me it’s quite profound to see as human beings how we operate and what our needs are. In a similar way, The Pool shows that we need to come together, a sense of shared language, it’s what we yearn for.”
The Pool will be screening across Australia in November. Find out more about The Pool here.
