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  • New Zealand Listener

    Shark whisperer

    Jul 11, 2021 5 minutes
    by RUSSELL BAILLIE

    If you’re making documentaries about octogenarians, it’s possibly best to ease into it. Let the subject dictate the pace. Don’t tire them out too much. Go with the flow.

    Or there’s another way. When it came to making a film on the action-packed life of Valerie Taylor, you could do what Sally Aitken did. She took her subject to Fiji and threw her off a boat into shark-infested waters.

    Such was the beginning of filming for Valerie Taylor: Playing with Sharks, the New Zealand-born, Sydney-based director’s doco about the 85-year-old Aussie grande dame of the undersea world.

    Taylor didn’t need much persuading for yet another dive on Shark Reef, where a tourist operation offers visiting divers a chance to observe sharks being fed by guides and where she has been a frequent visitor over the years.

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