Cinema / Film

On the Sea

88 Lothian Road

Tomorrow · 18:00

Helen Walsh · 115m · Film

About this event

Jack is a hand raker on the North Wales mussel beds, working alongside his younger brother Dyfan and his three sons. He has been married to Maggie for over half of his life, and he's always assumed that their own boy Tom would join him on the beds after finishing school. However, Tom begins to resist taking the path set out for him, causing rifts to appear within the family. These rifts are widened by the appearance of a nomadic deckhand in Daniel, who makes his feelings for Jack clear, and stirs up some feelings within Jack himself. The Church and fishery are the centre of Jack's remote and rural community - between work, love and family, he is now faced with an impossible dilemma. On The Sea , which received its world premiere in competition at the 2025 Edinburgh International Film Festival, is a scenic, sensual, and sometimes heartbreaking interrogation of what it means to be a man and masculine, deeply rooted in a sense of place and desire. The film is novelist-turned-writer-director Helen Walsh's sophomore feature following 2016's The Violators , which won her BAFTA's Breakthrough New Director award.