When Eamon Bourke's father decided to sell the family home, it seemed like a practical life moment that many families eventually face. Yet what began as a process of clearing rooms and sorting possessions would uncover something far more profound: a deeply personal exploration of grief, memory and family history that has become The Solway, screening at Hay Festival Winter Weekend this November.
Ahead of the festival, Bourke reflected on the remarkable journey behind the film, the discovery of his mother's voice decades after her death, and the enduring importance of cultural festivals such as Hay in creating space for conversations that matter.
For Bourke, the project began almost accidentally. Wanting to document the process of helping his father clear the family home, he placed cameras around the house and began filming the practical task at hand. What he discovered in the footage surprised him.
"There was absolutely a moment," he explains. "When I reviewed the footage from that first trip, I realised something special was happening. When you clear a home, it's like opening a container for storytelling."
As belongings were unearthed, so too were family memories. Stories emerged that had never previously been shared, with Bourke's father opening up in unexpected ways. The house itself became a character in the story, holding decades of memories waiting to be rediscovered.
"It felt like something that was much more universal," Bourke says. "So many people go through this experience at some point in their lives."
Among the discoveries were deeply personal artefacts connected to his mother, Sue, who died suddenly from illness in September 1983 when Bourke was just three years old.
Unlike many childhood losses that are remembered through fragmented recollections, Bourke had no memories of his mother at all.
"I can't remember her," he says. "I have no memories of her."
What he did discover, however, were a collection of cassette tapes recorded by Sue in the months and years before her death. Hearing her voice for the first time as an adult became one of the emotional centres of the film.
The tapes revealed not only the personality of a woman he never truly knew, but also the reality of the illness that would eventually take her life.
"Discovering her voice reintroduced me to the scale of the loss and the grief," he reflects. "I realised I hadn't properly processed her death. How could I? I was only a child."
The result is a documentary that operates on two levels: a chronicle of clearing a family home and an intimate attempt to understand a story that exists just beyond the reach of memory.
For Bourke, filmmaking became the perfect medium through which to make sense of the fragments he uncovered. Diaries, recordings, interviews, photographs and family stories all found their place within the film.
"I think filmmaking is miraculous," he says.
Many of the cassette tapes required painstaking restoration before they could even be heard. Once digitised, Bourke brought together voices from across generations of his family, including readings from his mother's diaries by his sisters and conversations with his father.
The editing process became an act of reconstruction.
"The image I had throughout was of a mosaic," he explains. "I had all these fragments of material and I was piecing them together. That's what I've ended up with really - a film mosaic that tells something of my family story."
While The Solway deals openly with grief, Bourke is keen to stress that audiences should not see it solely as a sad story.
At its core is a story of resilience.
"Our family carried on," he says. "My dad raised us on his own. We weren't destroyed by it."
That sense of survival sits alongside the film's exploration of loss, creating a work that acknowledges grief without being consumed by it. Bourke hopes audiences will leave with space to reflect on their own experiences while also finding something hopeful in the story.
"I think people may leave beginning to remember things in themselves and process their own griefs and memories," he says. "But I also hope they leave with a sense of positivity."
That balance of reflection and conversation makes Hay Festival Winter Weekend a fitting home for the film.
As audiences increasingly consume culture through short-form content and endless scrolling, Bourke believes festivals offer something irreplaceable.
"Maybe they're an antidote to exactly that," he says.
Rather than isolated digital consumption, festivals provide opportunities for audiences to immerse themselves in stories and engage directly with the people who create them. Following screenings of The Solway, Bourke will take part in discussions with actor Greg Wise and grief expert Julia Samuel, allowing audiences to continue exploring the themes raised by the film.
"It's that sense of being able to ask questions of the person who's created it and hear that extra detail and context," he explains.
He also believes festivals like Hay have a particular role in facilitating conversations around grief, a subject that remains surprisingly absent from many public discussions despite touching almost every life.
"For whatever reason, grief is still slightly held off in the mainstream," Bourke says. "But more and more people are talking about it, and so many people are living with a form of it."
That ability to bring people together around difficult, meaningful subjects is precisely why cultural festivals remain so valuable.
"Hay has always been an amazing space for these kinds of conversations."
As The Solway arrives in Hay this winter, audiences can expect more than a documentary about one family's loss. They will find a film about memory, storytelling and the objects we leave behind. They will encounter a meditation on grief, but also a celebration of endurance and connection.
And, fittingly for a screening taking place as the festive season approaches, Bourke hints there is even a hidden Christmas thread woven through the narrative, linked to his father's celebration of the winter solstice.
For a film born from loss, it seems an appropriate note on which to end: a reminder that even in the darkest seasons, stories have the power to reconnect us with one another, with our past, and ultimately with ourselves.
