The Travelling Film Festival is set to arrive in Wollongong this weekend, with nine screenings of the best new films from Australia and beyond. We spoke to South Coast director Isabel Darling about her new film The Carnival, a fascinating fly-on-the-wall journey with the Bell Family, a sixth-generation carnival show dynasty.
Tell us about your background and connection to the Illawarra…
I grew up in Canberra and moved to Melbourne for film school when I was 19, but in between I also lived in Mittagong for a short stint. We spent every holiday on the south coast exploring different regions, so the Illawarra and South Coast has always been a huge part of my life, whether we were visiting from the Southern Highlands or Canberra it's just always been at the centre of things.
Now, living in Batemans Bay, Wollongong has become an accessible city for work and meeting other creatives. I've now lived on the south coast for 8 years and just love it, being able to access cities like Wollongong has always been a benefit to living regionally and I've found there's a really great group of creatives and filmmakers based there too. In 2014 I founded a production company, Torchlight Media, which specialises in high-level tourism content, and we've had some great projects in the Illawarra too, it's a fantastic destination for all types.
The Carnival - how did the documentary come about?
The Bell family hold their summer carnival every year in Batemans Bay, so I've been seeing their show come to town for years, and I realised I didn't actually know anything about them. I didn't know where they came from, where they went or anything about their lifestyle, I was just so curious about it all.
One day I walked into their camp and just asked if I could start filming. It was a bit of a rough start as I was finding my feet and getting to know them slowly, but over the years I just kept on filming and a powerful story started to emerge. I realised that this was a family like any other - they faced many common challenges as a family business, but it had such a unique twist because they're on the road together year-round.
They don't live in houses, so they have the daily challenges of hauling their trucks and rides across the country and everything that goes with that, plus an economy that's been thrashed over the years of filming too, there's a lot going on. On top of this they have their own unique culture, traditions and history, it's a remarkable world to be involved with.
Tell us about the filming process, how did bushfires and the pandemic impact on this?
I had just found out I was pregnant when the bushfires hit on New Year's Eve 2019, and somehow I pushed myself to keep going down to the carnival grounds and catch up with the family where I could. It was such an intense time for everyone, but it was a balance between being home to protect the house and trying to get coverage down at the showground. Then of course the pandemic hit and that was just a shock to everyone.
The show industry was hit so hard by the shutdowns and the Bells ended up being off the road for nine months - the longest they haven't moved in the carnival's 100 year history. It must have felt very strange for them to not be on the road.
During the pandemic we were nearly trapped in Alice Springs as a sudden lockdown came into effect, but we managed to get one of the last flights out of there which was very lucky. It certainly was a challenging time to film all through this period, but I was lucky to be doing a lot of the filming myself at this point, so I didn't have to worry about a large crew or anything.
You filmed over a seven-year period, what were the challenges and discoveries that you had?
It was a really long haul. I had to try and keep my focus with what I was trying to achieve over a very long period of time and sometimes that was really tough. I self-funded the film for years which meant pouring cash into travel, hotels, motor homes, camera gear - anything I had to do to meet up with the family at locations across Australia so that we could give the film the widest landscape possible, and of course not miss any of the drama!
Once Shark Island Foundation [a philanthropic foundation dedicated to funding and supporting documentary filmmaking] came on board and the other funding bodies followed it was so much easier to get the film finished and that in itself was really encouraging.
Filming with my kids in tow also had its challenges but the Bell family were wonderful, really embracing me and my own family, making room for me to film, accommodating me in many different ways and being really genuine on camera. I was definitely lucky to get a family like this to film. They were keen to be involved every step of the way - even when they didn't have a clue what I was doing, they trusted me. That trust has gone a long way and I think has got us where we are today.
There were many times that I felt like I was ready to be finished but now I'm so happy it took seven years to film, it's a really special insight into a family - one we don't get to see that much these days, and it's been an incredibly rich experience for me and my family to be involved with.
Catch the Travelling Film Festival at Gala Twin Cinemas, Warrawong
Friday 21 - Sunday 23 July
Tickets from $13
Explore all nine films and book now: sff.org.au/tff/warrawong