Cirrus@Austlit

Director, script-writer, and script editor.

Bert Deling's first film was the experimental Dalmas (1973), in which (according to the synopsis on Screen Australia):

'An ex-cop is pursuing a drug-runner. Tracing a lead, he winds up in a seaside camp where hippies are being filmed by a documentary filmmaker. Suddenly the fiction collapses and actors and directors explore the film medium and their experiences with drugs.'

He followed this with 1975's Pure Shit, which traced two days in the lives in four junkies living in Melbourne. Only released on condition that the title was censored to Pure S, Pure Shit polarised reviewers and disappeared after a short run in cinemas. Released on DVD in 2009, it was selected for preservation as part of the National Film and Sound Archives's Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection Restoration Project.

In 1982, he directed Dead Easy (written, according to Screen Australia, by Danny Sankey), which also explored the seamier side of life: in this case, through a focus on a drug-addicted prostitute who becomes trapped in an underworld power struggle.

In 1985, he wrote and directed the science-fiction film Keiron: The First Voyage, now so unfortunately obscure that little discernable trace of it exists outside the Internet Movie Database. This was Deling's last work as a director, and the 'Master List of Melbourne Independent Filmmakers' on the website Melbourne Independent Filmmakers (http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/master_list.html) notes 'Inactive since around the early '80s.'

Deling has, however, continued to work as a script-writer, though not as a director. Between Dead Easy and Keiron: The First Voyager, he wrote the script for telemovie Matthew and Son (co-written with Marcus Cole and directed by Gary Conway) and contributed to the television series Sweet and Sour.

After Keiron, he worked as both script-writer and script editor on children's puppet-based television series, The Ferals (1994-1995). Between 1999 and 2003, he was a regular script-writer for long-running soap opera Neighbours, writing at least thirteen episodes.

Further Reference

'Interview with Bert Deling, Director of Pure Shit'. Crikey (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/06/05/interview-with-bert-deling-writerdirector-of-pure-shit/). 5 June 2009. (Sighted: 14/11/2012)

'Pure Shit: The Bert Deling Interview'. Mondo Stumpo (http://mondostumpo.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/pure-shit-bert-deling-interview-2009.html). 10 May 2009. (Republished in Rave Magazine, 12 May 2009.) (Sighted 14/11/2012)