'On the Sea' Courtesy of EIFF Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Helen Walsh describes the Edinburgh International Film Festival as "the ultimate arts love-in." The British novelist and filmmaker, best known for her feature debut The Violators and Channel 4 TV thriller The Gathering, is discussing the Fringe, TV and Book festivals taking place this month, all set to cement the Scottish capital as Britain's brimming creative hub across August. Walsh first came to Edinburgh Film Fest with her directorial debut in 2016 and now returns to present the world premiere of her sophomore feature, On the Sea on Saturday. An erotic love story begins for Jack (Barry Ward), a hand raker on the mussel beds in a beautifully remote fishing community in north Wales. In an exploration of masculinity and desire in a small, isolated town, Jack assumes his son, Tom (Henry Lawfull), will join the family business after leaving school, but his resistance to follow in Jack's footsteps causes familial tension. Things are further inflamed by the arrival of an itinerant deckhand, Daniel (Lorne MacFadyen) who makes known his feelings for Jack. Related Stories TV Vampires and HIV Collide in 'Silence,' the Spanish Miniseries Traveling From Locarno to Austin Movies Mubi Responds to Director Backlash Over Investor's Israeli Military Ties: "Suggestions Our Work Is Connected to Funding the War Is Simply Untrue" "It was loosely inspired by a man I knew who'd come out in his 40s and had been completely cut adrift from his family, friends and community," Walsh tells THR of depicting a gay romance. "I wondered how it would be for a closeted man like Jack to exist in such a claustrophobic environment, and how he would navigate the fallout when his sexual identity came to light." With a wealth of talent among its supporting cast including Liz White, Celyn Jones and Danny Webb, On the Sea is described by EIFF director Paul Ridd as "queer cinema at its most candid, sensual and raw." Below, Walsh talks about the themes explored in her latest project, why the story could easily exist in any rural U.K. or Irish town and which movies her team will be hoping to catch as the Edinburgh Film Festival gets underway. How did On the Sea first come to you, and what made you think it worked so well as a feature film? It was loosely inspired by a man I knew who'd come out in his 40s and had been completely cut adrift from his family, friends and community. But it was only when I found the mussel men of the Straits that the story really started to take shape. I created The Morgans, a family of brothers and sons who'd worked on the Straits their whole lives, in the scouring wind, bent to the currents, side by side. It's a vanishing tradition, passed down from generation to generation and I wondered how it would be for a closeted man like Jack to exist in such a claustrophobic environment, and how he would navigate the fallout when his sexual identity came to light. I'm from a novel-writing background where the interior lives and innermost thoughts of characters are made transparent to the reader. For an emotionally reticent character like Jack, who holds so much back, says so little, I thought the visual medium was a much stronger way of telling his story. Even at first-assembly, I found it a really moving experience watching this quiet, dignified character slowly unravel. Tell me about the decision to explore those themes of masculinity and desire in this specific setting, a small and insular fishing town in Wales. I've always been fascinated by masculinities, how different cultures and places and mediums construct them. As a kid, I loved the hyper-masculine males of Hollywood like Rambo and Rocky and the cool, sexy rebelliousness of Steve McQueen. And as a young woman, I loved the more nuanced constructions of masculinity that Claire Denis, Wong Kar-Wai, Jacques Audiard and Pedro Almodóvar were offering. I'm interested in the ways in which hard, physical environments give rise to certain masculine ideals and how in certain small, coastal communities, these masculinities become closely aligned with tradition, stoicism and heterosexual marriage. The film is just as much about masculinity as it is about sexuality. But while the story is strongly embedded in place, it's not specific to Wales - it's a story that could easily sit in any of the U.K. and Ireland's small coastal or rural towns. Is there a message to be drawn from On the Sea, then, and if so what is it? I think the message is that love and compassion always triumph. As humans, we can only cope with a certain amount of change and uncertainty and in an era of rapid flux, othering someone isn't always about hating them, it's about feeling threatened. Jack has lived his whole life in fear of being found out within his community, but Dan