Documentary Feature Film

Filmmaker Eamon Bourke lost his mother, Sue, when he was just three years old. He’s never been able to remember her, though he has longed to know her. When his father, John, decides to sell their family home - a remote cottage in the Lake District - Eamon doesn't want to let it go, so he returns with his camera to capture it on film, whilst helping to clear the house and prepare it for sale.

In the process he unearths untold stories and objects left by his mother, including clothes, diaries, poems, slides and old video footage. Most precious of all is a box of cassette tapes that he finds in the garage. Some are unspooled and broken, so Eamon repairs them. They contain pure treasure: his mother’s voice and whole family scenes, recorded and preserved. These are the memories that Eamon searched for but didn’t have.

He learns that Sue used to record cassettes for friends, because with three young children she was too occupied to write. On the tapes you hear Sue interacting playfully with her children, confessing to finding life tough as a mother, and singing songs.

Sue's final tape records her talking about contracting hepatitis and turning "a lurid shade of yellow". Days later she slipped into a coma and she died within weeks. That was in 1983. The last thing she recorded was her and Eamon singing together.

Harrowingly, Eamon also finds and repairs another tape labelled ‘Children’s Tape for Sue’. It was made by a neighbour who was encouraging the children to call for their mother in the hope that playing it to Sue in hospital might rouse her from her coma. It never did.

The discovery of this tape takes Eamon to the very heart of his wounding; to his three year old self shouting for his mother to come back.

The Solway is Eamon’s attempt to understand why the grief is still so raw even after 40 years.

The Solway explores the trauma of losing a parent in early childhood and includes interviews with Eamon’s father and two sisters. It’s also a celebration of how the family carries on in the wake of such tragedy, of John’s extraordinary capacity to raise three children as a single parent, and of the bountiful love that remains.

As Eamon pieces together his family's archive, he’s gathering the fragments of his own broken heart, making meaning from them, and preparing to say goodbye.

Set against the cinematic beauty of the Lake District and incorporating poetry, music, land art and astonishing animation, The Solway is imbued with a rare magic that provides a sanctuary for audiences to contemplate their own grief.

Description supplied by the event organiser.