Back And Forth

2020

The Isle of Wight is inseparable from the body of water that surrounds it. The town of East Cowes sits on a natural harbour in which the Red Funnel ferry docks 18 times each day. 

What does it mean to live on an island, and to what extent can island-ness inform the identity of a place and its people?  The sea denies islanders vital freedoms of movement. Thus, we are asked to unravel our relationship with borders and passage: keeping others out can imprison us within. 

The monolithic ferry serves East Cowes with supplies and access to the mainland. On the one hand, a reliable and loyal steed but on the other an authoritarian force, the islander’s gatekeeper. To some, a business serving the island as best it can and to others a ruthless company chewing its way through it.  The film questions what really is progress, to whom and what might lie in its wake?