WHY I WANT TO MAKE THIS FILM
Digby Webster – Co-director
In this film, I want to make it with you (Trevor Graham) is because I like storytelling and also because it is about me and my beloved and I like the whole idea. It’s a film about these two young actors, one girl with Down syndrome and one young man with Down syndrome, They’ve fallen in love and want to be together. So, for me this film is a good example of ourselves. It’s also about inclusion. Also including people with different kinds of disability to be part of this filmmaking and filmmaking for me is hard. But we love it anyway. Film is a bit hard, you’ve got camera, different lighting, different things.
I want to be a co-director of this film, because the start of this film is the paintings of my beloved and myself, those paintings are made by myself because I’m an artist. I want to show people out there that they will love to see a painting, it will be the first thing they will see. And I think it will be beautiful and it will be a gorgeous thing for them to watch.
I have been painting for Trevor Graham while he films me in my studio. We work closely together. Trevor is now my film maker who is making a film about me and my girlfriend Camille and my relationship with her and her relationship with me. We are making it together. He is the subject on my Archibald Prize portrait. I wanted to paint Trevor because he is now my friend. He is friendly and I wanted to put all of that on canvas. That’s why I chose him because he is a guy who never, ever stops holding the camera.
I also do artworks with Glenn Smith, my art support worker and friend. We make the drawings together for the animations in the film. This excites me. Seeing my drawings of me and my girl in animation.
One of the things you will like is me with my dressing gown with my partner wearing hers and we are cooking together. I hope you guys will love that bit. I just want to show the world how much this means to me and my partner. We want to show our world to your world.
CAN THEY TIE THE KNOT?
Trevor Graham – Co-director – Co-Producer
Digby & Camille ticks all the boxes for me as a filmmaker. It’s a character-led documentary full of humour, passion, dreams, and romance, anchored by a grand dilemma: can they tie the knot?
I first met Digby Webster and Camille Collins in December 2022 at the unveiling of a mural Digby painted in Newtown, Sydney. I was already a fan of his art. His bold, expressionist use of colour reminded me of Paul Klee, a Swiss-German artist I studied at art school in the 1970s. Klee believed naïve art expressed an “original state, free from corruption.” Like Klee, Digby composes with colour the way others compose with music- harmonies and dissonances alike. If only Digby and Klee could have met.
That first encounter led to 130 days of filming across three years – time-critical filming with Digby, Camille, and their parents. I shot handheld to create intimacy, movement, and spontaneity. It felt like sculpting a romantic novella in real time. Through my lens, I saw how audiences could fall in love, not only with Digby and Camille, but with love itself.
As a solo shooter/director, I slipped easily into their lives as the proverbial fly on the wall. But often they drew me in, breaking the fourth wall. Digby’s Archibald Prize portrait of me, Trevor – my filmmaker with his camera, captures this. When I gave Digby a camera to record candid moments, he turned it back on me: “I’m observing you, observing me.” This playful reversal revealed the filmmaking process itself, adding a charming layer of self-reflection.
The film blends observational shooting with Digby’s art and animations, vividly portraying the couple’s dreams and inner lives. Whimsy and colour – like his paintings – infuse the animations. But the binding ingredient is their love and the dilemma they face: to marry or not, with or without their parents’ blessing. This is their story, told in their own words. For the first time, two people living with Down syndrome (Digby a co-director) reveal their love story on screen.
Audiences are left to contemplate the dilemma. There are no easy answers. No fairy-tale wedding. Yet their dream of marriage lives on in a luminous animated sequence drawn by Digby himself. The documentary becomes their cinematic vow – an enduring public declaration of commitment.
We didn’t make Digby & Camille to chase commercial interests. We made it to fill a community need: to see ourselves as Australians reflected on screen in all our diversity. Screen Australia’s landmark, Seeing Ourselves report, identified the urgent need for representation of intellectual disability. Digby & Camille steps into that gap, bringing two vibrant, engaging characters to audiences at home and abroad.
Digby & Camille is more than a documentary. It’s a declaration of love, a challenge to conventions, and a cinematic affirmation of inclusion. At its heart are two people who simply want what all of us want: to love, to be loved, and to share that love with the world.
MY WORKING LIFE & BEING WITH DIGBY
Camille Collins
After I left high school I was employed by Hudson Global for over 16 years. It was the best job – I was Front Office Assistant and had a variety of tasks. I worked five days a week. I loved my colleagues, and being in the city. Unhappily I became redundant because everyone was working from home.
Not too long after I met a most wonderful man, Shaun Christie David, founder of social enterprise Plate It Forward. He offered me a role in his organisation and I have been there ever since. I’ve had exciting experiences being involved in many events and have learned a lot of kitchen skills. I also work in a retail outlet called The Sewing Basket. It’s the most beautiful place to work surrounded by fabrics and buttons and haberdashery of all kinds. I have learned to operate the cash register, and I help with the many people who shop there. It has been a fun journey through the ups and downs of our relationship. Digby and me will keep going.
WHAT IF YOU DON’T SEE YOURSELF ANYWHERE?
Lisa Wang 王兴月 – Co-Producer
Can you imagine growing up in a world where you are overlooked?
What if you don’t see yourself anywhere?
What if you don’t feel any connection?
You ask yourself where do I belong, who am I?
I am a 3rd generation Australian Chinese filmmaker, and because of my experiences growing up in White Australia, including 30 years in the Australian screen industry, for the most part I felt invisible. It’s not surprising that my heart lies in the creation of content that gives voice to the misrepresented and the underrepresented.
I’m delighted to be working with our two principal onscreen protagonists, Digby and Camille, one of whom is Co-Director, and both living with an intellectual disability. I imagine that they would have rarely seen themselves represented on screen as Artists (2024 Archibald Prize Finalist), Animators (Blockhead & Sparkles), Chefs, and the Heroes of a true-life love story. Thank goodness, this dynamic-duo are extroverts, confident, socially at ease and aspirational leading characters.
Our creative team surrounding Digby had the opportunity to advance their skills, understanding and knowledge of working in a socially inclusive fashion in terms of building story, realising the documentary, along with day-to-day team interactions which are equally important for the outcome of the production.
I believe that Digby & Camille will connect with a broad audience, because of the film’s specificity – as we are all unique individuals.
To quote Hannah Gadsby:
“Ironically, I believe Picasso was right. I believe we could paint a better world if we learned to see it from all perspectives, as many perspectives as we possibly could. Because diversity is strength. Difference is a teacher. Fear difference, you learn nothing”.es a poignant question: What’s holding them back? Why haven’t they said, “I do”?
