Seizing fate, I once placed a personal ad in a magazine, trying to track down a nameless, attractive ride operator who’d swept into my town with a travelling carnival. I was 13 and desperate to escape. Just placing the ad let in a ray of light.
Isabel Darling, director of the feature-length documentary The Carnival, can relate. She followed Bells Family Carnival around Australia for seven years – but sometimes just turning up to film vignettes wasn’t enough.
