Learning to Swim

Director: Ruth Grimberg

Year: 2016

Ex-miner Les Moore can't let go of the past. Thirty years since the end of the miners’ strike the last UK coal mines face closure. As Les fights to preserve the mine’s legacy his family must find a way to survive in a fragmented and forgotten community.

Director: Ruth Grimberg

Year: 2014

John is 32. Diagnosed with a devastating eye condition he is gradually losing his sight. Urged by those around him to make difficult decisions he seeks solace in his love of night fishing guided by his young friend Ben in a journey requiring real patience and fortitude.

Director: Eamon Bourke

Year: 2026

Filmmaker Eamon Bourke lost his mother, Sue, when he was three and has no memory of her. When his father decides to sell the remote Lake District home where she died, Eamon returns with his camera to document the house and its clearing. Among Sue’s belongings - diaries, poems, photographs and tapes - he discovers a box of damaged cassette recordings. After painstakingly repairing them, he uncovers something extraordinary: his mother’s voice. Through these intimate audio diaries, Sue speaks candidly about motherhood, sings to her children, and captures fleeting family moments Eamon never knew. One final tape records her describing the onset of hepatitis, days before she fell into a coma and died in 1983. Another, more haunting still, features three-year-old Eamon calling out to his unconscious mother in hospital, in a desperate attempt to bring her back. As Eamon pieces together this archive, he confronts the enduring impact of early loss, speaking with his father and sisters while retracing the emotional landscape of his childhood. Set against the vast beauty of the Lake District, a deeply personal exploration of grief, memory and love - an attempt to recover what was lost, and to finally say goodbye.