The Solway is a deeply personal debut feature documentary from filmmaker Eamon Bourke.

Eamon’s Mother, Susan, died suddenly in 1983, leaving behind three small children. Eamon was three and has no memories of his Mum. When his father, John, decides to sell their family home of nearly fifty years - a remote cottage in Cumbria - Eamon doesn’t want to let it go, so returns to capture it on film. In the process of clearing the house, Eamon discovers several cassette tapes containing real treasure: his mother’s voice and entire family scenes, recorded and preserved - the memories he'd been missing all his life! The very last thing Susan recorded was her and Eamon singing together.

Eamon also discovers another cassette labelled ‘Children’s Tape for Sue - September 1983’. Unspooled and damaged, Eamon repairs this tape and listens, discovering a heartbreaking recording that transports him back to the anguish and trauma of that moment in time, provoking a journey into the unknown.

Musicians, land artists and animators were invited to create original work inspired by this story and their contributions and stunning soundtrack imbue the finished film with a rare magic.

The Solway is a unique meditation on grief, love and the wound of losing a parent in early childhood.

Why We Need Your Help

We've already completed the film, thanks to the generous support of friends, family and the original funders. The core creative team have worked largely for free and devoted huge amounts of time and energy to The Solway to get it to this point.

We now need help to bring The Solway to the widest possible audience.

We want to launch The Solway with an impactful world premiere at a film festival, and generate press and publicity around the launch. We’ll then host screenings at other festivals and cinemas to widen discussions around grief and creativity and the impact of losing a parent in childhood.

We need funding to:

- Enter film festivals in the UK and internationally. We need to cover entry fees and also enable us to attend any festivals we get into, so we can be there to champion the film and pursue any opportunities that arise.

- Hire a specialist film publicist to help us build a press and publicity strategy around the film to make the biggest possible splash.

- Organise community screenings, working with grief charities, experts and special interest groups, to facilitate meaningful conversations about the issues raised by the film. This forms part of a wider impact campaign.

- Bring some of the brilliant musicians featured in the film - Ceitidh Mac, the folk duo The Brothers Gillespie, Rollo Clarke and Máiréad Kerr - to play live at some of our screenings, enhancing the audience experience of these live events.

- Pay for professional poster design and printing, and other marketing costs, including a website.

We need at least £5,000 to cover entering and attending film festivals and to coordinate press, publicity and marketing around the film's launch.

We would love to raise £10,000 to support a more ambitious screening programme.

The more money we raise, the more we'll be able to do, and the more people the film will reach.

Why This Film Matters

Most of us have lost someone we love, or can imagine how that will feel.

Through sharing Eamon's story, we hope others will find new ways to talk about and understand their own grief and loss.

Audiences at private screenings have been deeply moved by the film. One said, ’this was the description of grief I didn’t know I needed’. Another said, ’this was worth 100 therapy sessions’.

The Solway resonates strongly with current public conversations around grief - aligned with films such as ‘Hamnet' and 'H is for Hawk’.

It's also a life-affirming film which celebrates love and family, heightened by the cinematic beauty of Cumbria and the Lake District.

The Solway also champions positive male role models and discussions around mental health, with John single-handedly raising three children after Sue’s death.

Who We Are - Creative Core Team

Director Eamon Bourke - Eamon directed, filmed and edited The Solway. The Solway is an act of devotion to his mother, an honouring of her memory and an attempt to understand why his grief still feels so raw after forty years. On the tapes, Sue asks Eamon to sing her a song, and Eamon feels this film is his reply.

Producer Ed Arthur - The Solway is close to Ed's heart, as someone who also lost a parent when he was a child. Ed's last documentary, The Road to Excess, was recently released into Welsh cinemas.

Producer Nicola Cutcher - Nicola has found her life immeasurably enriched by working on The Solway and believes the film has the capacity to touch audiences deeply. She was Bafta-nominated for co-producing the C4 documentary 'Syria's Disappeared: The Case Against Assad'.

Musicians - Incredible musicians have created music for The Solway, including the alternative folk singer and cellist Ceitidh Mac, the Northumbrian folk duo The Brothers Gillespie, composer and pianist Rollo Clarke and musician Máiréad Kerr.

The film also features an extraordinary animation by Ashley Dean of Broken Pixel, which provides a unique place in the film for audiences to contemplate their own grief.