Follow The Rain - Fantastic Fungi

HOW DO FUNGI FIT INTO THE WORLD OF LIVING THINGS? An exclusive south-coast premiere of the feature-length documentary from world famous fungi hunters, Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak, takes us on a magical journey into the weird and wonderful world of fungi. In an endangered forest in Australia, fungi hunter and acclaimed fungi photographer Stephen Axford, spies an intriguing frosty blue mushroom. He discovers it has no name. No one knows where it fits in the Kingdom of Fungi. He is the first to document it for science.

It turns out this mushroom is one of the two million – eleven million species of fungus that scientists think could exist but have not yet been identified. The science of fungi has been a neglected frontier of discovery. Today there is a mass myco-awakening and the race is on to document as many species of fungi as possible, as fast as possible. At the forefront of this push internationally are Stephen Axford, and his partner in life and all things fungi, filmmaker Catherine Marciniak.

In Follow the Rain, their latest documentary, they invite us into their fungi obsessed world. They share their fungal finds in some of the most stunning wild landscapes of Australia tropical islands, ancient rainforests, the hostile majesty of the desert. We discover the creepiness of zombie fungi and the wonder of the Australian ghost fungus. They take us behind the scenes into their fungarium, revealing what they observe as they record the life and death of mushrooms and mycelium growing in spellbinding time-lapses. They meet mycologists who are revealing mind-expanding science. And they unearth new and charismatic species. The evocative score by composers Romano Crivici and Carla Thackrah layers the story with magical fragile harmonies and powerful rhythms, creating a vast primal soundscape.

Visually captivating, a symphonic treat and incredibly entertaining, Follow the Rain is an exploration of the world of fungi the like of which we have never seen. It combines a decade of research and passion, magnificent fungi time-lapses and footage, and the most incredible fungal stories.

Following showing of the movie, Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak will speak on their experience and answer your questions.