Suzy & The Simple Man
Ian David Darling AO is an award winning documentary film director and producer based in Sydney, Australia.
He is Executive Chair and Founder of Shark Island Institute and Executive Director of its production arm, Shark Island Productions – a documentary company which creates extensive outreach, education and community engagement campaigns with their films. He is also Chair of GoodPitch2 Australia and The Caledonia Foundation.
His documentary credits as a producer, director and executive producer include Suzy & The Simple Man, The Genesis, It Stops With Me, The Oasis – Ten Years Later, Paul Kelly - Stories of Me, The Oasis, Polly and Me, The Soldier, In The Company of Actors, Alone Across Australia, Woodstock for Capitalists, Inventing Tomorrow, Unrest, 2040, The Fourth Estate, Fly, How to Change the World, (opening night film Sundance Film Festival 2015), and the Untitled Hollywood Assault Movie.
In May 2017 he was named Australia's Leading Philanthropist by Philanthropy Australia.
Darling’s first documentary in 2001 Woodstock for Capitalists was a film featuring investors and philanthropists Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and won the CINE Golden Eagle Award. His next film in 2004 Alone Across Australia about extreme adventurer Jon Muir was voted one of the 20 best adventure films of all time by Men’s Journal Magazine and won over 32 international awards.In The Company of Actors was a 2007 film that followed the journey of the Sydney Theatre Company cast of Hedda Gabler from rehearsal room in Sydney through to opening night in New York. The cast featured Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Robyn Nevin. The Oasis was a multi-award winning documentary that was filmed over two years about Australia’s homeless youth. The film had a strong social and education outreach campaign which led to the most significant national inquiry into youth homelessness in 20 years.The Oasis was named one of ‘Australia’s Top 50 Philanthropic Gifts of All Time.’The Oasis became the inspiration to Darling filming two docu-dramas Polly and Me (a harrowing tale of child abuse and neglect, seen through the eyes of an 8-year-old girl), and Wall Boy (a runaway forced into teenage prostitution and the courageous outreach worker who attempts to rescue him). The Soldier was a documentary on Ken Depena, a devotee of the Salvation Army since 1949 who featured in The Oasis, the film garnered a 'Special Mention' at the Antenna Documentary Film Festival.Paul Kelly - Stories of Me based on prominent Australian singer songwriter Paul Kelly opened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2012 and won the Film Critics Circle of Australia Best Documentary Award. Stories From the Inside looked into a group of young first time offenders in Port Philip Prison. Suzy & The Simple Man an environmental love story featuring Suzy and Jon Muir, discusses sustainability and survival in a remote country community. The film premiered in 2016 at the Sydney Film Festival and had sold out screenings at Melbourne International Film Festival.
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