Interview with Ian Darling (THE VALLEY)

From the director’s statement on his website: “This project challenges traditional documentary storytelling. I aimed to create an immersive, meditative experience that invites patience and openness from viewers. With its mostly silent narrative, the film emphasises the unspoken — highlighting the power of stillness and the sounds of silence. It invites viewers to interpret and create their own stories for each character, filling in the quiet moments, and embracing the ambiguity. Its length and rhythm requires a conscious commitment, but I believe this approach offers a meaningful journey — one that suspends the noise of modern life and offers a space for empathy and reflection.

Ultimately, THE VALLEY is a contemplative journey — a chance for viewers to slow down, breathe, listen and observe. It celebrates the power of solitude and the importance of community. In these challenging times, it offers a quiet affirmation of inner peace, resilience, and the profound beauty of stillness.”

THE VALLEY, a Shark Island Productions film, premiered at the Sydney Film Festival on June 7th, 2026, made by a team led by director Ian Darling, who I interviewed via emails for Unspoken Cinema. I reviewed this film here earlier on. We talk about his past filmography as a documentarian, where each projects takes on a different form, about his fascination with Frederick Wiseman, who inspired him to take duration to the limit, about the sacrifice of the members of this secluded community living in one of the true valleys in the world, about the meticulous editing process and the genuine sound design, about Michelangelo Frammartino and the Contemplative mode of “cold surveillance”…

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UNSPOKEN CINEMA: Thank you very much for accepting this interview. The Valley is the first film of yours I have had the chance to watch. Was this contemplative approach already present in your earlier documentaries?  For instance, could you tell us about the visual style of ALONE ACROSS AUSTRALIA (2004), THE OASIS (2008) and SUZY AND THE SIMPLE MAN (2016)? How do they compare, and what is unique to THE VALLEY?

IAN DARLING: THE VALLEY was the first film I’ve made that has this contemplative approach, where duration enables us to explore the concept of solitude in more detail. The previous film I directed (THE POOL, 2024) had many meditative moments, but none of this duration that we apply to THE VALLEY. In pre-production we planned for this to be a film without a music soundtrack, with a quiet gentle approach, full of the sounds of nature, ensuring audiences could capture the solitude of the characters and the relative silence of life in a farming community. 

While THE POOL and THE VALLEY can be considered companion pieces, THE POOL observes people at play, where no one really knows what each other does. In comparison, THE VALLEY is very much observing people at work, where everyone is defined by what they do. This is typical in small rural towns. I’m sure it is the same in France. Both films have a meditative feel, where the environment is as much a character, as the people themselves featured in the film. In both instances we wanted every frame to be a ‘masterpiece’ and spent much time setting up the shot and choosing the lenses accordingly. 

We planned the film shoot to be a controlled one, with each sequence filmed with a locked-off camera, with a fixed frame where the characters would largely walk in and out of this frame. We wanted to give the impression that we were peeking around corners, without them being aware of our presence. And in reality much of this happened, and they largely forgot we were there. 

I’m fascinated by form, and every film I direct typically takes on a new form. I have less interest in making the same film again and again. 

The documentary we released in 2019, THE FINAL QUARTER, was made entirely from archival footage. We hadn’t worked with archive to this extent ever before. While comparisons have been made to the work of Asif Kapadia (SENNA, 2010; AMY, 2015), we had a real purity around the approach, where no new interviews were recorded, even for audio purposes - we totally relied on what we could find that was recorded at the time. The approach was closer to the great film by Brett Morgan, JUNE 17TH, 1994 (2010), made entirely from news footage. Our film THE FINAL QUARTER, about racism in sport, featuring the champion aboriginal footballer Adam Goodes, who was booed out of the game. It is a film that observes racism in Australia, by going back to what was said and what was heard at the time. We’re thrilled that this film has become one of the most watched documentaries of all time in Australia, which includes over 20% of all school students. 

ALONE ACROSS AUSTRALIA (2004) is a film that builds a world around a solo adventurer, who spends 130 days walking across the country alone and unassisted. A very different form for us. This was a film where the subject filmed most of the film himself on the journey. We filmed after the expedition, to fill in elements of the story, but it was largely a solo effort. An intriguing collaborative approach to filmmaking. 

Our trilogy about homelessness in Australia, THE OASIS (2008) , LIFE AFTER THE OASIS (2018) and THE DEPARTMENT (2021), were pure and raw observational films. These documentaries unfolded in front of us, focussing on the chaotic lives of homeless street kids and those under the eye of the Child Protection Department. These films were very different from all of our other documentaries. Hand held cameras only, spontaneous reactions, extremely challenging and at times dangerous conditions, with the stories being written on a daily basis, depending on what we were capturing and who we were following. THE OASIS led to major new government policy and new funding initiatives, and was screened in every school in Australia. 

Our film PAUL KELLY : STORIES OF ME (2012), about one of Australia’s most successful singer/songwriters, is a film that tells his story primarily through his words and music. This was created as a biographical music documentary, using a patchwork of interviews, to piece together his entire life through his songs. Again this was a very new approach for us, where the lyrics were a key element and story guide on screen. This was a very beautiful way to fully understand the character and soul of this brilliant musician. 

IN THE COMPANY OF ACTORS (2007), featuring Cate Blanchett in the rehearsal room and on stage, was more of a process film, where we observed the making of a theatrical stage show, from rehearsal in Sydney through to production in New York. This was a sensitive film to make, and actors typically don't like cameras in their sacred rehearsal space. This was typically a hand held, observational approach, where we had a timeline to opening night, but on a daily basis never really knew what would happen. This was a film that revealed much about the creation of theatre, with rare and privilege access to the delicate process of making theatre.

 

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: I’ll come back to your comments on THE VALLEY; first I can’t help but notice you use the pronoun “we”, do you believe documentary filmmaking is a collaborative process? Who defines the identity of the project and chooses the appropriate form for the subject (if the form changes for every new film)?

IAN DARLING: Yes, I always treat filmmaking as a collaborative process. Having been directing films for 25 years, I have never allowed in the credits A Film by Ian Darling - we only use A Shark Island Productions Film to reflect the collaborative nature of our filmmaking process. Hence the use of ‘we’ ... 

As director I share my vision with the team, regarding my plans for the form and the intent of the story, and then we all work up the elements together. The filming, editing and production process is all very collaborative with my wonderful team. 

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: Kangaroo Valley is only two hours from Sydney, yet it feels profoundly removed from urban life. What first drew you to this particular valley? What specificity defines this community, and what made it worthy of a film? Is it truly an idyllic paradise on Earth, or is it a partial — if respectful — selection of positive perspectives that invites us to see it that way? Did you consider other locations before settling there?

IAN DARLING: I have been visiting Kangaroo Valley for about 30 years and have always marvelled at the power of its natural beauty. We wanted a place that would enable us to make the location a character in the film. We also wanted to break the mould of the typical Australian film, set in the outback, full of dust and flies. This place is quite different. We got many clues from the work of Frederick Wiseman, knowing that in his films he likes a contained environment with which to tell his story. That's why he typically likes to focus on institutions so much (hospitals, operas, libraries, museums, mental institutions, city halls, town burrows, department stores, etc). In this instance Kangaroo Valley jumped out to us as being one of the 12 true valleys in the world (others include Yosemite, Grand Canyon). This seemed like the perfect environment to tell the story - a beautiful contained valley, with one road in and one road out, with both a rural community and a town. It is a community that was in fact cut off from flood for months back in 2021, and where fire destroyed over 50 houses in 2020. 

Like every small town there is gossip and local politics. But we wanted to tell a different story - one about solitude, connection and the sounds and rhythm of the bush. A slice of time, where we simply recorded what we saw and heard in front of us at a point in time. Again more clues from Wiseman here. Our meditative approach purposely avoided these typical human traits and frailties, too often cheapened in cinema and television. We wanted to tell a unique and fresh story, that blended the toil of the locals into the community and the environment. 

While it is idyllic, we hope audiences also take time to consider the cost and restriction of work in a country community - and consider the fact that cows need to be milked day and night 7 days a week, cafes need to open every day even when the owner has been up all night baking bread, toilets need to be cleaned twice a day meaning the janitor hasn’t had a day off in over 30 years, vegetables are washed away in floods, eggs have to be collected every single day of the year as a solo operator, hardware shop owners have to take on second jobs to survive, builders work all their life and just as they are about to retire they die, and a service station owner who works day and night at the pumps and delivering newspapers. While we don't necessarily reveal all of these elements, there is enough here in the film for the audience to consider. Yes, they may dream about the beauty of what they see, but we also hope they consider the pain, the sacrifice and the cost of constant toil on the locals of Kangaroo Valley. 

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: It’s true that your film carries an implicit questioning of the heavy labour burdening certain protagonists, conveyed through subtle, insistent framing (subtlety being everything here). Yet there are few real complaints among them: not even the service station owner gently bickering with his wife, nor the handywoman without holiday ultimately fostering any genuine conflict. This makes for a powerful contemplative piece devoid of laborious exposition. Neither bitter nor envious people, there is a quiet acceptance of their fate in the Valley, I felt, characterising these scenes. 

Also the aftermath of the 2021 flood you mention is visible in one sequence, does this mean you filmed around the flood itself, before and after? Or is it a different flood altogether? 

IAN DARLING: Yes, different flood. We filmed in 2024.  That one in the film was a tiny one in comparison. 

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: You spent 100 days of shooting on site in Kangaroo Valley. I’m guessing this is not 100 consecutive days, thus over which period of time did you get immersed in this community? Did you work with a small crew, and how many cameras were deployed at any one time? A film of this nature demands an extraordinary investment of time; how much footage did you accumulate before entering the editing room?

IAN DARLING: We shot for 100 days, over about 2 years. Typically we filmed for 2 weeks at a time. In advance we spent many weeks over a 6 month period in the valley talking to potential participants before the cameras rolled. Our producers Kate Hodges and Sarah Butler (who lives in Kangaroo Valley) identified a potential cast of about 50 characters, from which we made key selections. 

When filming we always had a small crew - myself as director, Ben Cunningham cinematographer, Emma Darling sound, Harry Kielly as camera and production assistant, and Kate Hodges our main producer was often with us too. It was primarily a single camera film shoot. On the ground we only used one camera at a time, enabling us to create a very specific cinematic style. Ben used the high end Sony Venice (TOP GUN: MAVERICK) to shoot most of the scenes. High end prime lenses were used. In other instance we used drone footage. Over the 100 days we shot about 100 hours of footage, which we thought was reasonably economic. Quite quickly this was cut down to about 10 hours in the edit suite - and at this point the real sculpturing began. We spent about 12 months in the edit. 

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: How did you approach the editing process? You mentioned editing is a collaborative endeavour too… What were the guiding principles for deciding what stayed and what was cut? How did you conceive the minimalist narrative? There is no clear circadian or seasonal alternation, even if we perceive some changes along the way… Was there already a canvas established before the shooting started or did the “story” emerge from the sum of all the shots?

IAN DARLING: Before filming commenced, we had established our intent to create a film with a relatively long duration. The canvas had been established in pre-production. We shot the film with a certain style, with long cuts in mind. We honoured the long period of relative silence and minimal dialogues in each of the scenes we shot. We intended the editing style to be in sync with the gentle durational approach we had in mind. We started the editing process while the film was still being shot. It was a long editing process, involving 2 senior editors (Sally Fryer and Hilary Balmond) and 2 assistant editors (Harry Kiely and Emma Darling), all under the guidance of myself and Sally Fryer. We had 100 hours of footage to assess. The first task was to assemble the footage in a variety of different themes: characters, landscape, events, drone footage. We divided the task amongst our 4 editors. Initially we all talked collectively about the intent and role in the film of each character. It was important that the 5 of us were across the wider story that was developing for consistency purposes. Then the editors set about individually cutting the sequences of about 50 characters into story lines. I would work with the editors individually on their first few cuts, and then Sally would edit the finer cuts into a single editing rhythm that she had established. Each editor tackled a number of the event scenes too (e.g. folk festival, swimming carnival, Christmas, the play, the show etc.). We wanted to ensure each scene could stand alone as an individual story. We decided how to start and finish the film, then we started to place scenes together according to where there was a distinct connection between the characters and their relationship to the other scenes in the community. Once all the scenes were edited, Sally and I started the long task of assembling everything into an order, which ultimately we would call a film. Our first assembly was about 8 hours. We gradually whittled this down to 6 hours, and then a 4 hour cut with intermission. It was still too long. We intended for this to be a 3hr film, and when the final edit was complete, we came in at 180 minutes and 2 seconds!

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: A job well done! How did you select these few portraits? Are they a faithful reflection of the local population as you found it, or is there a conscious editorial choice with some blind spots (like the aboriginals and younger people for instance…) in this panorama?

IAN DARLING: It is interesting that you raised the ‘blind spot’ regarding the aboriginal people. It is always a difficult balance. We do have the scene with Drew and Leah at the grind-stone, as well as the scene with Coroborree. But it was in the interests of restraint that we decided not to put more in of the indigenous people - and it would have been very forced if we did. Australia has a dark past, and 200 years ago there were ferocious battles, wiping out much of their population. The last aboriginal people in Kangaroo Valley left about 100 years ago. We do work tirelessly in film to support indigenous causes, and have worked with first nations filmmakers for over 20 years. But in this instance, we applied restraint, and only included what we saw over the 100 day film shoot, and these 2 scenes represented an accurate picture of where the valley, and indeed Australia is today. So we personally wouldn’t describe our restraint as a blind spot, but more the reality of what our cameras saw. It's always a difficult and sensitive issue in Australia. Our aboriginal advisors to the film feel we applied the correct approach too. 

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: I believe you took the still portraits of the subjects featured on the poster yourself — and created a photographic exhibition with them — was there a moment when you envisioned incorporating them into the film, in still video format? 

IAN DARLING: Once filming was complete and editing had commenced, I set out to capture a set of photographic portraits of all of the participants in the film. Unlike the documentary, where no additional lighting was ever used, I created a series of images using focussed lighting on the characters, to give a heightened sense of them in their environment. This was always intended as a separate exercise, and given the different look and feel of the photos, we never actually intended for them to also be in the film. The framed photographs were displayed in the Old Store at Kangaroo Valley before the launch of the film. The full collection of images can be seen on the film web site thevalleyfilm.au 

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: The film's soundscape feels at once authentic and finely calibrated. How much of what we hear is direct sound recorded on location, and how much has been shaped or supplemented in post-production through foley work?

IAN DARLING: We paid great attention to the sound. We knew that this was as important as the beautiful cinematography, especially being a film with limited dialogue and no narration. Our sound recordist Emma Darling always spent time after every scene capturing the wild sound in the area, so that everything was authentic. During production and in post, our sound designer, Nigel Christensen spent many days recording additional sound at every location in and around Kangaroo Valley (bird noises, animal sounds, the wind etc.). We wanted to ensure total accuracy and legitimacy with each sound. Every bird noise was recorded within an exact narrow radius of each scene being filmed. No additional sounds came from libraries. Every environmental and animal sound is real and captured in situ. We did use foley for certain sounds that were captured up close on camera if the location sound wasn’t adequate or distorted - e.g. footsteps, chess pieces. Our aim was to ensure that the most avid bird watchers would only recognise the bird sounds from the specific areas of the valley where they are found. I think we succeeded in our sound quest here.  

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: THE VALLEY is an observational film (à la Frederick Wiseman) that belongs to the mode of “cold surveillance” in Contemplative Cinema, meaning without subject interaction, dialogues, or voice-over… relying chiefly on the evocative power of silent images and a succession of seemingly disconnected vignettes. Beyond the Lumière Brothers or the Symphonies from a Big City series in the silent era, this mode is best represented, more recently, by the Contemplative documentaries of Franco Piavoli, Aleksandr Sokurov, Raymond Depardon, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, or Sergei Loznitsa. If you are familiar with any of them, did they inspire you to make more such films in the future? 

IAN DARLING: Frederick Wiseman certainly has been an influence. He gave me the courage to make duration a key element of the film. Wiseman’s films however are very dialogue heavy with a very strong presence of meetings and conversations. THE VALLEY has very limited dialogue. One of our key observations was how much time the workers in a country town spend alone and in relative silence. The American painter Edward Hopper was also a key influence. His paintings reflect solitude like no other artist. I loved the way his work invites us in to tell our own story about what we see. Our scene with the old man on a bed has had a similar effect on audiences - for example is he lonely or just alone, what brought on his tear, did he die in the film?  My fascination with the labour and workers in the valley was motivated by Studs Terkel’s book ‘Working', when like our film, we can see great beauty, purpose, satisfaction in just observing the mundane.   

While I’m more familiar with the work of Franco Piavoli, and less of the others on the list, I was inspired by 2 works of Michelangelo Frammartino - IL BUCO and LE QUATTRO VOLTE  - both contemplative, unhurried films with very little dialogue, yet quite beautiful and compelling. 

I’m fascinated by ‘form’ with filmmaking, and most of my documentaries reflect a different form. While I have no immediate plans for creating another contemplative film, I enjoyed making this film so much, and one day would love to find another subject worthy of such an approach.

UNSPOKEN CINEMA: Thank you for this insightful interview. Thank you for your patience.

Read also at Unspoken Cinema:

• Valley Time (a film review of Ian Darling's The Valley, 2026)