Ivan Gaal

Ivan Gaal (born 23 March 1938) is an Australian filmmaker. He primarily makes documentary films. He has also worked as a professional photographer, and also gained recognition as an Olympic standard canoeist. Gaal was born in Budapest, Hungary, on 23 March 1938, and was educated in the Communist system until his departure to Australia at the age of 18. At his school in Budapest, the historic Toldy Ferenc Gimnázium, he excelled in the sport of Olympic wrestling and was the junior champion of Budapest in 1954. He also excelled in canoeing.

He emigrated to Australia as a refugee in 1957, following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. After staying 6 months in the migrant camp in Bonegilla in Victoria, he settled in Melbourne, and won the Australian Canoe Championship (held by the Australian Canoe Federation, now Paddle Australia) in the Canadian Pairs class in 1960, which led to his selection to the Australian canoeing team for the Rome Olympics in 1960. Due to a lack of funds, he was unable to attend the games.

He worked for the Australian Broadcasting Commission from 1959 to 1969 as an audio technician, and then worked for the Department of Education Victoria from 1970 in the Audio-Visual Education Centre (AVEC) film unit, where he stayed for almost 30 years, directing various docu-drama and documentary films. At the same time, he made independently-produced films, with government grants. He also completed the Graduate Diploma in Applied Film and Television from the Swinburne Film and Television School (now Victorian College of the Arts) in 1978.

He has been involved in many organisations over the years, including the Melbourne Filmmakers' Co-Op, the Pram Factory, the Australian Teachers of Media, where he was a judge on the ATOM Awards from 2007-2008, Metro Magazine and the Yarra Ranges Film Society, where he has been a judge (from 2005 to the present) of the "Show Us Your Shorts" program at the Warburton Film Festival. He was interviewed regarding his involvement in the Melbourne Filmmakers' Co-Op in the 2022 documentary film Senses of Cinema, which premiered at the 70th Melbourne International Film Festival, and was broadcast on SBS-TV in 2024.

While working as a filmmaker, Gaal also worked in still photography. He took photos of various musical artists working for Fable Records in the 1970s, including Francisus Henri and Brian Cadd, and for the Department of Education, promoting physical and sport education for Victorian students in the 1990s and 2000s, and for the Victorian Olympic Council from 2006-2014, where he was awarded an Order of Merit in 2012. He won the Visage Portrait Competition in Photography (Yarra Ranges) in 2014 and also made the finals in the National Photographic Portrait Prize in 2013, 2015 and 2022 in Canberra, and Duo Magazine Percival Photographic Portrait Prize 2016 in Townsville, and one of his photographs, of George Spartels, was accepted into the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra in 2019. He staged a solo photo exhibition at Art Centre, Warburton, Victoria, in 2017. He has published a book of his photographs called People, Stories and Dance in 2018.

In 2021, Gaal published his autobiography, It's All Good ... (ISBN 978-0646-84034-5) Trove

In 2022, the Hungarian TV network Duna did a special profile on Gaal, on a Duna World segment on 2022. 10. 18, and a tribute to Ivan Gaal was staged in Melbourne by the film group Unknown Pleasures.

Gaal has also remained physically active in recent years, taking up lawn bowling at the age of 70, winning championships at the Richmond, Princes Park and Warburton bowling clubs.