Ili Baré is the director of Australia’s Open, a documentary film which premiered at the 2023 Melbourne International Film Festival and which is set for national cinema release on 12 October.
Her film is one that will hook tennis fans in with its incredible archive footage, inclusion of iconic moments, interviews with tennis stars and how it captures the sport’s aesthetic beauty.
But it will also appeal to a wider audience, fascinated by the Australian Open’s interconnection with broader cultural, social and geopolitical events.
It features former players like Pat Cash and Rennae Stubbs, tennis administrators including current tournament director Craig Tiley and his predecessor Paul McNamee, and sports broadcasters in Bruce McAvaney, Tracey Holmes and Shelley Ware. There are also international perspectives – Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim and the New York Times’ Damien Cave – and those of former politicians Jeff Kennett and Josh Frydenberg.
Chatting with Baré, we discovered what those voices brought to the project, as well as her connection to tennis, her thoughts on why the sport is so captivating, and the reception so far to her film.
Ausopen.com: In terms of your filmmaking and documentary background, you've done a lot of things that aren't related to sport, or tennis. So I was wondering why it was tennis, or the AO, that attracted you for this film, over other sports?
Ili Baré: "It's a sort of golden era for sports documentaries at the moment. So I've been watching a lot of them, and what really attracts me to them is the fact that you're able to see people, in real life, really connecting with really deep, universal … extremes of human emotions. While I come from outside the tennis bubble, I played a lot of tennis as a kid, so I wasn't coming to it completely cold. One of the things that I think is so amazing about tennis, and tennis coverage now, is that as a filmmaker, you've got all of these different angles on one moment, where the stakes are really high. So one thing that I really wanted to achieve in the film was that, while we talk about these kind of wider issues and turned the camera back towards the stands and beyond, in terms of looking at the context the Australian Open sits within, I also really wanted those sort of classic moments that really explained what draws people to tennis, and to sport, in the first place.
"I really feel like it's kind of ripe for letting an audience really connect with the highs and the lows. It's not that the audience or spectators take pleasure in seeing Pat Cash being defeated, for example, in 1988. It's that the experience of seeing someone experience that depth of emotion which connects to something in all of us, as well."
Is there something specific about tennis that you think offers something unique in that way?
"People often use the word 'gladiatorial' (to describe tennis). I think team sports offer something kind of different. If you're a spectator, and you belong to an AFL club, there's something about allegiance and the group. And I think there's something very much about seeing individuals under pressure... it is kind of gladiatorial, in that sense. Even the shape of Rod Laver Arena or any kind of tennis stadium, is like a colosseum. That's something that really attracts people. Once they know what's at stake and what's going on, that's when people become really invested.
"It's also about the game of tennis itself; someone once wrote that if you look at the score of a tennis match, it's almost like a storyline in and of itself. It doesn't have the detail, but it sort of has the basics of kind of like a story arc. There's something in the narrative of tennis that lends itself particularly well to story. I think that's obviously what people connect with when it comes to sport, anyway, is the story."
There have been so many recent examples where professional tennis has intersected with geopolitics and culture. But in the synopsis of Australia’s Open, it says the AO 'inadvertently' reveals Australia's divisions to the world. So I wondered, given the AO is often intertwined with such big things, is this just a coincidence? Or is there something more going on, why tennis so often seems to find itself at these cultural crosshairs?
"I don't know whether or not it's uniquely tennis... I think with the word 'inadvertent'; it's obviously not any tennis tournament's aim, or any sporting event's aim, to really tackle the big issues in society. But it does seem that, increasingly, sport becomes a stage where a lot of these things play out. There are fewer and fewer moments now where people experience the same thing, at the same time, en masse. And that, in itself, gives live sport a kind of currency that on-demand entertainment or social media (doesn't) – everything is very bespoke to people's algorithms. It's very segmented. So this notion that people are experiencing big emotions in response to an event that's happening now, together, is something where I think there are fewer stages for that.
"It's not the main focus of the film, but I think it makes these moments, as Damien Cave says in the film, increasingly special, and perhaps more powerful. I think it's part of what makes it such fertile ground for exploration. As Tracey Holmes says, people always say sport isn't political, or politics shouldn't matter, but sport is highly political, both in its administration, but then also in all of these other things that play out through it. I think that's part of the richness, at the moment, that we're seeing in sports storytelling."
You mentioned this is a golden age for sports storytelling, so when going into this project, were you conscious of how you wanted to differentiate your film when there's so much of this genre now out there? How did you want to separate your piece?
"I wanted to take the really good things about that kind of storytelling, where you're in the moment, and still have blow-by-blow descriptions of a match, and you're really invested in that outcome. Not only because it's great to watch, but also I guess to demonstrate what it is that attracts people to the Australian Open in the first place. What I do think differentiates this project ... was kind of looking at sport not in a vacuum. Looking at all these other things that are going on around, in the stands and beyond, that really are kind of part of the action, and inform so much of the storytelling that happens around the Australian Open. It was definitely a real change to work out how we were going to weave (together) this sort of storytelling of sport, and then also a wider cultural and socio-political analysis as well."
The experts and insiders who came on and spoke – how were they chosen?
"I really wanted to make sure we had an international perspective as well. I didn't want it to be a bunch of Australians, talking about what we think (it is). I wanted it to have that sense of, if you've got millions of eyeballs around the world focusing on Australia in this moment, what are they seeing? And also really contrast that with what we (as Australians) think they're seeing. And I guess I wanted to have, yes, players and people who were on the court, but I really wanted to articulate that experience of what it is that we love about watching it, and how does this fit into other kinds of big cultural moments? It was that mix of having people who were both on the inside and the outside, as well as both Australian and not."
What’s been the response to the film?
"I'd have to say, overwhelmingly positive. I think a lot of people who I've spoken to have said 'I've never watched a tennis match in my life and it's so exciting, I get it now!' And other people have said they'd never really thought about (how) there's so much politics. The whole experience has been a pleasure, and it's also been a pleasure sharing it with people, because people have really enjoyed it so far. I hope people go and see it in the cinema."
Where does it get screened, beyond the Melbourne International Film Festival?
"October 12th is the national cinema release, and then in January, two one-hour versions of it will air on the ABC prior to Australian Open 2024."
Being a tennis fan, and having played the game growing up, what are some of your strongest memories of the Australian Open, either from attending it or watching on TV?
"I remember sitting on the grass in the Pat Cash-Stefan Edberg final in 1987, the last Kooyong event, with my Dad. And then he packed us up and we went to play some tennis tournament as a family in Daylesford. But because I've never been able to serve, it was very torturous; the other members of my family can actually play tennis quite well. So they all had a good time.”
This is a time of change in our sport, with the recent retirements of some all-time greats – it does feel like a real era is ending in tennis. Given you've been so immersed in the world of tennis and the AO lately, in this time of huge generational change in the sport, does the tennis landscape look strong and healthy to you?
"I'm no expert at all, but I do think people have been saying generational change is happening for the last five years, and it hasn't quite got there (laughter). But I think it's a really different era in terms of players being more in control of their narratives, social media, and all of that kind of stuff. That's obviously a real opportunity to get younger fans in with younger players. Some people I spoke to said: 'now that Federer is gone, I just don't even know if I can watch the game anymore'. But ultimately, the game will continue, and it will go from strength to strength, and it will become something else.
"From what I have seen, the Australian Open also seems to set a very high bar for itself as a tournament. If you set yourself up as the 'reinventor', you can't rely on doing the same things... if your tradition is reinvention, then you need to keep doing that. I think there's a real opportunity for wider demographic engagement with players who are younger, and possibly and hopefully more diverse as well."