Two and a half hours south-east of Melbourne, in Walkerville South, lies one of Australia’s most beloved beaches. For the last 35 years it has enchanted children as the setting of Alison Lester’s bestselling picture book, Magic Beach – so, when it came to a film adaptation, an on-location shoot was a no-brainer.
“It casts a spell over you down there,” says the film’s director, Robert Connolly. While he was filming a scene, he recalls, one of the producer, Kate Laurie, “tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘that way’. We spun the camera around … and a pod of dolphins passed.”