Opportunistic fungi hunters tour the South Coast with 'Follow the Rain'

But watching the trailer for Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak's documentary "Follow the Rain" feels truly magical.

This is not digitally enhanced or CGI filmmaking, but simple good-old-fashioned timelapse photography revealing the secrets and science of fungi.

From the get go, the viewer is captivated by the breadth and depth of the fungi world. These are not your average field mushrooms.

Timelapses of the birth, life and death of various fungi, beautifully shot by photographer Stephen, are interwoven throughout the 76-minute documentary.

Accompanied by the stunning musical compositions of Romano Crivici and Carla Thackrah, the score not only underlies the action, but crucially enhances the beauty of what is unfolding on-screen.

Filmmaker Catherine captured the video component of their journey and skillfully edited the story together to take you behind the scenes of their quest.

Their quest to answer the question 'How do fungi fit into the world of living things?'.

Stephen said fungi were an integral part of life.

"We've got life forms on land that are basically plants, animals and fungi, and we've pretty much ignored fungi for most of the time until recently," he said.

"It's dawning on people now that they are just as important as plants and animals - often they are the link between things.

"We talk about flora and fauna, but people have forgotten 'funga'.

"There's estimated to be up to 11 million species of fungus on the planet."

A period of reflection and reinvention in the early 2000s for computing engineer Stephen, led to an awakening to the world of fungi as he began to photograph what he found.

Catherine, a journalist and filmmaker, said she could not help herself and began to document Stephen's foray into this largely unknown world.

Before long they were attracting interest from mycologists worldwide with Stephen's photographs sought for field guides and Catherine's video for conferences and research purposes.

They were invited to China and India to document fungi species, often heralded as experts in regions desperately short of mycologists.

From their early interest they rode the wave of discovery that brought mycology out of the dark into the zeitgeist.

Popular culture has seen a mushroom explosion with books such as 'Entangled Life' by Merlin Sheldrake and the post-apocalyptic video game and television series 'The Last of Us' perpetuating this new interest.

Catherine and Stephen said they had been fortunate to help bring this "neglected kingdom of life" into the light.

"I've become a trendsetter because I started doing it before most people had realised the potential for photography and mushrooms - I was out there taking photographs...for a long time - there's 10,000 photographs on my website," he said.

Catherine believed they had played a part in the "myco-awakening".

"There's been a number of things that have happened around the world and we are kind of part of that team of people who, independently and together now, helped raise awareness around fungi," she said.

Having worked for researchers all over the world, Catherine called "Follow the Rain" their passion piece,

Born out of COVID when they did not travel overseas, they pivoted to concentrate on their own backyard, following rain events and hunting for the opportunity to film fungi life.

"They are just the most extraordinary, elegant things," Catherine said.

"We see the fungi and the forest at its best all the time and we wanted to really put that beauty up on screen."

Now they were touring with their documentary, hosting Q&A sessions at screenings.

The month long Fungi Feastival held throughout the Bega Valley and Eurobodalla Shires will see the documentary screened in Batemans Bay, Moruya, Barraga Bay, Merimbula and Moruya with the South Coast premier at The Kinema in Narooma Friday, June 21.

The full program for the Fungi Feastival can be found on the website. For more information 'Follow the Rain' visit www.planetfungi.movie