THE RUN

Featuring: Pat Farmer, Katie Walsh, Kevin Nguyen, Dr Joseph Grace, Tania Farmer and Josh Cordoba.
Co-producer: Deepti Sachdeva.
Consultant producer: Penny Robbins.
Writer/director: Anupam Sharma.

WORLD PREMIERE: Screening April 1 at Cineworld, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., as part of the 2018 Newcastle International Film Festival.

Rating: 4/5

If it had been director Anupam Sharma’s intention to merely document the physical challenge of running 80 kilometres a day in stifling heat over 2 months, the resulting film would have been it’s own remarkable story of endurance and determination. The Run, his account of Australian long-distance athlete Pat Farmer’s 4647 kilometre journey from Kanyakumari in India’s south to the northern town of Srinagar, proves to be more than a triumphant tale of mind-over-muscle sporting achievement; Sharma has crafted a fascinating and moving study in group dynamics, shared goals and, most importantly, the unifying goodness of the human spirit.

Farmer has shown repeatedly to be a salt-of-the-Earth individual; a quintessentially ‘old school’ Aussie bloke whose enormous heart allows him to empathise with the disadvantaged of the world, then undertake ultra-marathons in aid of their causes. He became front page news for his record-breaking Centenary of Federation run in 1999, when he spent 191 days traversing 15,000 kilometres of his homeland; other undertakings include running Pole-to-Pole to benefit the The Red Cross and long-distance challenges for causes in the Middle East and Vietnam.

The Run production team was present from the earliest days of his latest project, capturing the initial mobilisation of bureaucrats in both India and Australia. Farmer and his team needed to ensure that the undertaking, to be called The Spirit of India, was fully supported as an act of international charity; the 56 year-old would run for The Nanhi Kali Foundation, a group who seeks to further the education of disadvantaged young women across India.

Having earned his industry stripes as head of the Sydney-based production company Temple and fresh off his directing debut UNindian (2015), Sharma proves himself a naturally gifted long-form documentarian (his 2013 doco-short Indian Aussies Terms and Conditions Apply earned international acclaim). Embedding himself within the event team, his skilful camerawork captures the majestic countryside and frantic city streets of India, while his deft storytelling reveals the determined individuals and intertwining personalities that drive the initiative forward.

Despite an outwardly understated demeanour and singular focus, Farmer himself proves a deceptively complex presence; nothing will deter him from his aim of highlighting the cause and imparting his message, yet he tolerates no slip-up or half-heartedness from his crew. Sharma is certainly on board with his leading man’s charitable objectives, but The Run is not an exercise in hero building; the physical and mental torment of the endeavour and how that manifests in Farmer and on those around him is central to the film’s integrity.

Strong-willed team manager Katie Walsh and medic Joseph Grace, both warm on-screen presences, butt heads with their boss when logistics or health issues threaten to derail Farmer’s schedule. Most dramatically effective is rookie photo-journo Kevin Nguyen, whose fresh-out-of-Uni naivety is tested to the limit by the sub-Continent experience and who feels the full force of Farmer’s most impassioned, occasionally uncivilised tirades (though Nguyen gives as good as he gets in one ‘enough-is-enough’ confrontational moment).

The tense moments are all part of the intricacies that made Farmer’s Spirit of India undertaking such an extraordinary social event; a coming-together of like-minded goodwill ambassadors to realise a remarkable act of resolute human determination achieves its goal. In so truthfully capturing moment after moment of the uplifting bond between the beautiful people and places of India and the soaring spirit of Pat Farmer, The Run forgoes the observational disconnect of most factual films and becomes one with the profound journey itself.