87-year-old Isla Roberts’ lived experience of rural Australia, caring for a mentally ill husband, and raising a family in severe economic hardship, makes for a fascinating story of a singular woman well before her time. 

Isla now lives with her partner Susan in a simple cottage in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia with two ponies and a dog. Her inadvertently political life as a Queer octogenarian is a fresh examination and subversion of the LGBTQIA+ experience. 

Following Isla over the course of a year, she will go back to her remote marital home for the first time in 60 years, attend her grandson David’s farm wedding, welcome new great-grandchildren and fight to keep carriage driving. 

One thing becomes very clear – she’ll do exactly what she wants, while she can. Poignant, funny and heart-warming, the story of Isla and her partner of 40 years Susan, is a window into the invisibility of older women in society today. 

Here, Isla’s Way filmmaker Marion Pilowsky writes about her experiences making her new observational documentary.

About Marion Pilowsky 

Prior to directing Marion was an international film producer whose credits include Sleuth (Jude Law, Michael Caine) and Being Julia (Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons). Marion wrote and directed her first short film, The Ride, starring Anthony LaPaglia and Ed Speleers in 2011 which premiered in competition at the Tribeca Film Festival and was nominated for a Jury Award.

She directed a further six short films before she co-wrote, produced, and directed her debut feature film, The Flip Side, starring Eddie Izzard, in 2018 for 20th Century Fox. A story of female ambivalence and love, it premiered in the World Perspectives strand at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2019 and was released theatrically in Australia on 100 screens. 

In 2020 Marion co-created and directed Recipe For Love, a dating-cooking TV series exclusively for 50+ singles which was won 2021 Program of the Year at the Australian community TV awards and was nominated for a 2021 SPA Light Entertainment Production of the Year. 

Isla’s Way in Marion Pilowsky’s words

When I was 34, my mother died. It was expected, as she had been ill for many years, but it was still shocking.

Decades later, I met David Roberts, who told me about his grandmother, Isla Roberts. I realised that Isla was the same age my mother would have been if she had lived, and I discovered that even though they were deeply different women in many ways, they also had amazing similarities in their approach to life.

As a filmmaker, I’m interested in authenticity and connections to real people. The child of migrants arriving in Australia in 1966, I have a fascination and almost envy for multigenerational Australian families. I wanted to be like that – not the kid with the strange family whose parents spoke with accents and ate weird food! I wanted to be a true-blue dinky-di Aussie! And this is Isla one hundred percent.

My creative process is instinctive; I try not to drill too far down to avoid subject fatigue. I want to keep my mind open, curious, and have fresh eyes so I have the space to pivot or to expand without feeling that the structure will collapse if I don’t follow a pre-determined path. I find this approach freeing and creatively exhilarating. I do preparation and research, but not so that it becomes an academic exercise over an emotional one. Learning about who Isla is behind her gruff, salt-of-the-earth façade became the greatest challenge. And universal themes emerged: identity, love, loss, family, and aging.

My visual approach was to frame Isla in her natural world. To achieve this, our cinematographer, David Roberts, used various lenses, including vintage, multiple cameras, smartphones, and drones. He was able to capture both the grandeur of the rural South Australian landscape and the intimate domestic life of Isla and Susan—whether planned or at the drop of a hat.

Natural light was always my preference, and finding the textural and aural contrasts during the picture and sound edit helped to amplify the Australian seasons we traveled through.

My creative references included the 1970s photographic book Katie One Summer, shot by the late New Zealander Guy Mannering, the work of cinematographer Suzy Lavelle in Ordinary People, and the warm and generous tone of the documentary The Truffle Hunters.

Isla is ‘not a lesbian and not gay,’ she is simply who she is, “I’m Isla, I don’t need a label.” Her approach to her identity in a highly controversial age of gender politics and identity labeling seemed to me a uniquely fresh take on the queer experience.

I believe Isla will unapologetically do what she wants while she can. Her agency and independence are extraordinary aspects of her ordinary life.

Lastly, I have tried to stay objective and let the story organically reveal itself and to avoid being anything other than honest because that’s what Isla is and always will be.

Isla’s Way is in cinemas from November 9. 

Wallis Mitcham
Wallis Mt Barker
Wallis Noarlunga
Piccadilly Cinemas, Adelaide
Wallis Mildura
Capri Theatre, Adelaide
Mallee Cinemas Lameroo
Oatmill Cinemas, Mt Gambier
Cameo Cinema, Murray Bridge
Cinema August, Pt Augusta
Lincoln Cinema, Pt Lincoln
Roxby Link, Roxby Downs
Odean Star, Semaphore
Victa Cinema, Victor Harbor
Whyalla Cinema
Kadina Cinema
Katherine Cinema
Mansfield Armchair Cinema
Yarra Golf Cinema, Yarrawonga
Blyth Cinema
Silver City Cinema, Broken Hill
Showbiz Cinemas, Swan Hill
The Regent, Murwillumbah