Gracie Otto began a film about her dad’s one-man show. A diagnosis changed the story

It was just after 8.30am and Gracie Otto was tearing up.

The filmmaker was talking about how her father, celebrated actor Barry Otto, had gradually turned into an eccentric child – awestruck and cheerful – since being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease six years ago.

Director Gracie Otto (left) and producer Nicole O’Donohue in the Butterfly Room at the State Theatre in Sydney.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“He’s so happy,” Otto said. “He’s so healthy. I mean, he still eats hot chips and white bread and pink milkshakes. He doesn’t really know anyone any more, but he knows we [his family] are important. So he’s just in his own dimension.”

The star of Bliss, Strictly Ballroom, Australia, The Great Gatsby and The Dressmaker is 82 now and living at home with his wife, Sue Hill, in Sydney. He enjoys the company of two cats, Bogart and Bluebell, and, like a child or “a magical garden gnome”, will wear three hats at the same time.

“Mum is obviously a hero,” Otto said. “And then we have this amazing nurse, Alison, who comes in every day, who’s also the unsung hero. So he’s able to live around all his beautiful objects and all his things and still be safe in the house and looked after.”

Otto and producer Nicole O’Donohue were talking in the State Theatre’s ornate Butterfly Room about their documentary, Revealed: Otto on Otto, which will have a world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival next month.

Gracie Otto’s film about her father, Barry, took a sharp turn in its subject matter during filming. Credit: Sydney Film Festival

While the initial plan was to focus on Barry preparing for a one-man theatre show, the cruel diagnosis turned it into a film about memory.

“It sucks that, in life, all you have is memories,” Otto said. “For that to go, what do you have? At the same time, this is someone transcending or regressing back into being a baby, which is a really beautiful thing to watch … The nurse wrote the other day in his report ‘it rained and Barry thought it was magical’.”

Otto on Otto features interviews with many of Barry’s creative collaborators, including Baz Luhrmann, Gillian Armstrong, Cate Blanchett and Neil Armfield.

“I showed him Strictly Ballroom recently and he didn’t know that was him, which was weird,” Otto said. “Then it got to the end and he started clapping and it was just so sad. He heard the song [Love Is in the Air] and he knew what it was.”

The filmmakers realised while making Otto on Otto how many families had been affected by Alzheimer’s. While they kept Barry’s diagnosis quiet for a while, partly so he could keep working, Otto thought the film could help others dealing with the disease.

“Obviously, every family goes through it in a different way and there are tough times and angry times and frustrating times,” Otto said. “But you can go through it and also see the comedy.”

So how emotional was making the film?

“Ten out of 10,” Otto said, brushing away a tear. “A hundred out of 10.”

O’Donohue expects there will be many more tears when Otto on Otto screens at the festival. They both thought it would be too overwhelming for the subject of the Stan Original Documentary to attend. (Stan is owned by Nine Entertainment, publisher of this masthead.)

“He goes out to the park and back and that’s about all he can manage,” Otto said.

Opening the festival … Midnight Oil in Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line.Credit: Daniel Boud

Festival director Nashen Moodley, who announced the program at the State Library of NSW on Tuesday night, said as well as films that reflected the turmoil around the world, international directors had been making a surprising number of love stories and comedies.

Among the comedies in the festival’s competition are Kinds of Kindness, a dark comedy from Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos, Kneecap, a raucous comedy about a Belfast rap trio, and Puan, a sharp comedy about two Argentinian philosophy professors vying for the same job.

The 71st festival, which runs from June 5 to 16, opens with the world premiere of the documentary Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line.

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