“I found it hard to pick the difference between the short version and the long version”, I said to my friend Michaela, about the documentary film she has produced, “Destination Arnold”. A few months ago I saw the 50 minute version that will screen later this year on ABC-TV. This weekend I saw the 77 minute cinema version, which premiered at the Sydney Film Festival. The difference between the two? “You get the chance to stay in the moment longer”, she told me.

Though I knew the plotline, had seen the earlier version, and had “lived” through much of the documentary’s development, as Michaela and I catch up regularly, I still really enjoyed the Sydney Film Festival screening.

It’s such a great story, about two women who aspire to to enter the Australian finals of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Body Building Contest. Along the way, they lose their way, and ultimately it becomes a film about friendship.

But it’s not a friendship without flaws, and the two lead characters have their own individual flaws, and that’s what makes it such an enjoyable film. It’s real!

And we had an awesome night dancing at the after party!