For most Australians, the name Bob Hawk conjures up images of one our more recognised former Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke. But in the American independent film world, the name is more commonly associated with a well-renowned film consultant, most celebrated for shining a light on filmmakers like Kevin Smith, Edward Burns and Barbara Hammer. In fact, Kevin Smith holds Hawk almost single-handedly responsible for saving his first film, Clerks, from total oblivion. In some quarters Robert Hawk borders on becoming a legendary figure, known as much for his eccentric and engaging personality as he his for his masterful ability to spot a cinematic winner waiting to happen, and champion undiscovered talent.

Given all this, it’s about time that somebody made Robert Hawk the subject of a film, which is exactly what documentary filmmakers JJ Garvine and Tai Parquet have done with Film Hawk. Together they’ve directed a film that presents viewers with an entertaining portrait of a man who has given everything for cinema, forgoing fortune in exchange for the opportunity to make himself available to tomorrow’s artists. Perhaps no scene makes this more clear than the one in which Kevin Smith very nearly breaks down while explaining the extent to which he owes his career to Bob Hawk.

Comprised largely of interviews with Bob Hawk, well known independent American filmmakers, and several of Hollywood’s A-list, this is a must see for avid cinephiles.

I sat down with Garvine and Parquet to talk about their exciting new feature ahead of its Australian premiere at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival in July.

Hi guys! Congratulations on the film, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t know who Bob Hawk was. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but in Australia, Bob Hawke is one of our more respected former Prime Ministers.

Garvine: Yes, yes! We learned that after we started and then we would get emails or tweets about the wrong Bob Hawk.

I’d love to just start off by hearing a bit about how you two came to work together on films in the first place?

Garvine: We used to actually work together at a bank… totally unrelated to filmmaking. It really just naturally happened from that. We had similar interests, similar work ethics, and similar goals.

And from what I understand, you first met Bob when you hired him as a consultant on your first film together, Keeping the Peace. Is that right?

Parquet: Yeah, that’s really how we got to know Bob firsthand, rather than just from his name or the reputation. It’s funny, doing Film Hawk, and talking to all these filmmakers about their firsthand experiences working with Bob… in many ways it mirrored our experiences. Bob, obviously, is so knowledgeable, so experienced in the art of filmmaking, the craft of story and narrative. He taught us so much, not just about the craft, but about the industry from an artistic standpoint… the way to tell a story so that the audience can best interpret it.

I think I saw it mentioned on your Facebook page that the whole Film Hawk project started off at a dinner one night? What was the story there?

Garvine: Yeah, that’s true. That was just seven years ago. It was April 6th. What happened was Tai and I were going to go into New York City to see a new documentary by Steven Soderbergh. Bob had a free evening and said he would join us, so we all met for dinner. It was at that dinner where Bob started opening up about his personal life and telling all these wonderful stories. Coming home on the train that evening, we were like, boy, what an interesting guy. What an interesting life. The next day was his 73rd birthday. We were thinking, wow, this is really cool that it’s his birthday and it’s kind of like he looked back on his life with us. That’s what inspired us to make the film.

Parquet: If you have one conversation with Bob, just literally one conversation that is not specific to work, you find out he’s a very anecdotal storyteller. You realise that this guy has lived a very interesting life. He has a very interesting perspective. He is truly an individual. He’s very comfortable in his own skin and secure in who he is. He’s such a delightful, infectious kind of person. You kind of want to turn the cameras on and just let him go.

Was it hard to convince him to get on board with the film?

Parquet: I don’t think it was as hard as we thought it was going to be.

Garvine: The very first interview we did with him, which you do see briefly in the film when he’s walking around the video store. That was World of Video in New York City and it’s long closed, unfortunately. We said, “Bob, can we do an interview with you and just talk about some indie film?” He said, “Yeah, sure.” That was almost like a test for us to see if we could put this together. For him it was just … he was just giving an interview. It kind of smoothly progressed into filming more, and more, and more.

Then Kevin Smith was the first person we reached out to on Twitter and said, “Hey, do you want to be part of this?” He said, “Absolutely.” From there, we were able to say to every filmmaker, “Hey, do you want to be in this film? It has Bob Hawk. Kevin Smith is in it.” Everyone who had an open schedule said, “Absolutely.” We pinpointed five filmmakers specifically that Bob would sit with, five points of Bob’s life in indie filming, starting with Rob Epstein, and then Edward Burns, Kimberly Reed, Barbara Hammer, etc.

You pulled together a pretty huge line-up. It’s hard to believe seeing him on camera that nobody has tried to make him the subject of a film before. Have there been previous attempts?

Parquet: Not at all. It was pretty funny actually. As we were going around and filming these different subjects and wonderful filmmakers, many of them actually said, “Oh my god, I should be doing this documentary,” or “I thought about doing this documentary.” Even as far as convincing Bob to do it, it wasn’t as hard as we thought. We put together a strategy to try to get Bob interested, but once he was in, he was in. It really wasn’t hard to get him to work with us. One of the things about Bob is he really enjoyed us and he trusted us a great deal, which was very important.

Kevin Smith, when he introduced the film at Sundance, there’s video of this online, and he says, “I should have made this movie.” We’re sitting there in the audience like oh my god, this is great.

Bob plays a consultant role on films. I’m curious if he had any involvement with the production of Film Hawk, or did he come in and give advice after you presented the first cut?

Parquet: Well, Bob is a film consultant by trade. It is very difficult for Bob to not give advice on a film, but he really recognised at an early point that he couldn’t be objective on this film, so he stepped back. The biggest thing he spilled about was making sure that it was a concise piece… that it wasn’t longer than it needed to be. As far as structural cuts, he really didn’t say too much about that. He let us choose what we thought was best to tell the story.

But it must be terrifying to put a film about Bob Hawk in front of Bob Hawk and say, “What do you think?”

Garvine: Bob saw an early cut of the film before we submitted it to Sundance. I remember when the phone rang, I let it go to voicemail, because I didn’t want to speak to him directly. I just wanted him to give his thoughts on voicemail. He didn’t say much. He really wanted to speak directly, but he said, “I just saw the film and it’s a very healthy cut,” which just means of course it needs to be trimmed down. The way he said it like that, I just thought, oh, okay. That’s very good. He shared a lot of stuff. It’s got to be very difficult for him to watch this film. Indie film is his life; it is his career. We certainly didn’t want to make him look bad. Really, it’s his story. We just tried to put it all together in an entertaining way.

Parquet: The most terrifying thing was screening at Sundance. The expectation for the film were suddenly beyond what we thought they would be when we were making the film. In our wildest dreams, we weren’t thinking we were going to get into Sundance. Obviously, if you’re an independent filmmaker, it is your goal. It’s your dream, but it wasn’t our reality.

As far as showing Bob the cut, it was never terrifying, because he made it clear that he trusted our instincts. I knew we would put something together that Bob would find entertaining and would represent him well. I don’t think that was ever a fear that JJ and I had. We knew there would be sticky issues here and there that he might point out, and that there would be some disagreements, or that we would have to kind of convince him of certain things, but as far as showing him the film, I think we were excited, because we knew in our hearts that he was going to be pleased.

Garvine: This is so true. We were by far the cheapest film to show at Sundance that year. The production, basically, was me, Tai, Bob, and our director of photography, Daps Reinert. It’s the four of us just walking around New York City on a Saturday afternoon, stopping in a café and chatting. This was spread out over about three and a half years. We had exciting days. Eddie Burns would join us. Barb Hammer. But it’s really just the four of us walking around. All of a sudden one day, the Hollywood Reporter is talking about it. Variety is talking. It’s like whoa, this is getting really big really fast.

We’re at Sundance. John Cooper, the director of the Sundance film festival, is on stage with Kevin, introducing the film. All the who’s who of indie film are in the audience. We had brunch with Robert Redford!

Parquet: Everybody’s at Sundance. Spike Lee’s at this Sundance. And here we are, two guys from Delaware with a film that costs at least $200,000 less than every other full-length feature there. That’s when the anxiety of expectations started kicking in. You’re sitting in the audience about to introduce your film that you know cost $200,000 less than every other documentary people are going to see.

Garvine: At the same time, we believed in Bob. We love Bob Hawk. He’s a great guy. Of course, then we screened at the Director’s Guild of America in Los Angeles. We showed at the Castro Theatre, one of the greatest theatres in the US in San Francisco. We were in New York. It showed in Austin, and Orlando, and Philadelphia, and all these great cities. But take all of that aside and it’s just about … we’re just introducing a very good friend of ours. Really, at the end of the day, that’s what the movie is.

Parquet: And he’s a very good friend of film.

That’s true as well. It sounds like you’ve been swept up in something fairly big! Is there something you’re working on right now to take advantage of the momentum?

Parquet: We’re actually working on multiple things.

Garvine: Yeah, yeah. With all that experience now under us, we’ve met a lot of great people in the industry. Just like Tai said, we’ve got a couple things up in the air that we’re working on, good things. Of course, we plan to have Bob Hawk as a consultant on everything. I think we’re a team for life.

Nice. Well, hopefully you get discount rates now.

Parquet: What’s great is, hopefully, we’ll be in a position where we can really pay him and not necessarily have to worry about discount rates, but try to help him out as well. Hopefully he blessed us and we can bless him back, reciprocal.

Will you guys be able to make the screening at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival?

Parquet: We can’t make it, unfortunately. I’ve never been there. I would love to.

Garvine: I would love to. I’ve always wanted to go to Australia. But we want to thank everyone in Australia who will be able to see it, and to tell the people of Australia we are so sorry for Donald Trump. That’s all I’m going to say!

Tickets to see Film Hawk at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival are now available.