Actor-turned-director Nick Barkla has completed his first project, documentary Inside Fighter, and is developing a feature drama and another doco.
Inside Fighter follows Australian pro boxer Frank LoPorto, who was 33 when he had the once-in-a-lifetime chance to fight WBA world light middleweight champion Austin Trout in El Paso, Texas.
Given just five weeks to prepare for the championship bout as a replacement for a boxer who broke his hand, LoPorto was beaten badly, causing him shame and embarrassment.
The 50-minute film will have its world premiere at the St Tropez Antipodes Film Festival next week after Barkla scored an invite from the festival’s president Bernard Bories, whom he met at MIFF this year.
Film Victoria funded the development of the screenplay but Barkla funded 90% of the production from his own pockets.
He’s just sent a copy to the ABC, which gave him a letter of interest early on, and Bories has offered to introduce him to European broadcasters at the fest, which will screen a host of Oz features including The Rover, The Bababook, Patrick, These Final Hours, Galore, Canopy, and in a homage to the late director Craig Lahiff, Swerve.
Barkla, whose acting credits include Stephen Sewell’s Embedded, Blind Company and Tom White, had wanted to try his hand at directing for a while. He saw the potential in the doc that examines how a pro boxer deals with defeat and disappointment in the experiences of LoPorto, a long-time friend, and followed him for two years after the 2011 El Paso fight.
His next directing project is The Mighty Apollo, which will chronicle Australian strongman Paul Anderson, who was known as the world’s strongest man in the 1930s and 40s.
Barkla has done a deal for the rights to the story with Anderson’s son Paul, who runs the gym in Melbourne founded by his father.
The Mighty Apollo was world renowned for feats of strength and stunts such as having an elephant stand on his chest. But in his later years as his strength declined he had a tough life and a sometimes fractious relationship with his son.
Barkla is also developing Miss Shiv, a feature inspired by his previous job as a youth worker at a female prison. The screenplay will trace the love affair between two female inmates as they take part in a theatre group.
US-based producer Virginia Kay, whose credits include Richard Gray’s upcoming The Lookalike (which stars Justin Long and John Corbett) and Gray’s Sugar Mountain (Jason Momoa, Carey Elwes), has agreed to produce the film. Barkla aims to complete the final draft before Christmas and to shoot in Australia.
In Embedded, he plays a battle-weary Australian war correspondent who meets a darkly fascinating woman on his way home. The two retire to his hotel suite where he finds his match in a frightening and erotic game of truth or dare.
Laura Gordon (Saw V, TV’s Twentysomething), who is Barkla’s partner, plays the woman. The couple has worked together several times, including in Alkinos Tsilimidos’ drama Em 4 Jay.
“I love working with her because she’s so good, and we have a level of trust,” he said.