Get your sea legs ready for a screening of Launch! celebrating Scotland’s lifeboats.
Seil Community Cinema is hoping to reel in a big audience for this film night on Saturday November 4.
Doors at Seil Island Hall open at 7pm and it starts at 7.30pm followed by a Q&A session with Oban lifeboat’s coxswain Ally Cerexhe and other crew members – unless they get a call out!
The film’s launch coincided with Covid and never made it to Oban, so here is your chance to see it on a big screen.
Oban’s RNLI fundraising stalwart Peigi Robertson provide a a voice-over in the film. In 2020 she received a long service award after notching up 50 years of voluntary contribution.
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The film dives into archive footage of the country’s RNLI lifeboat crews, with an immersive soundtrack from some of the UK’s most exciting contemporary musicians.
Directed, researched and edited by award-winning curator Shona Thomson in a co-production with Screen Argyll, the 44-minute film was two years in the making with unprecedented access to the RNLI’s own archives.
Film footage of lifeboats from the 1920s sourced from the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive is woven with 1960s colour promotional films and breath-taking digital video captured by RNLI crews’ 21st century helmet cameras whilst out on the wild sea – including from the Tobermory crew.
Tobermory RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager Dr Sam Jones was involved in Launch! since its inception.
As well as some modern rescue footage from the Mull station, the film features footage of the naming ceremony of the Sir Arthur Rose, Tobermory’s first lifeboat, at the fisherman’s pier in August 1939. Sam who was fortunate to see Launch! live at Celtic Connections in January 2021 says the soundtrack is very powerful.
The soundtrack was composed and recorded by John Ellis who has played and recorded with Tom Jones, Lily Allen and The Cinematic Orchestra as well as Jason Singh who is a sound artist and nature beatboxer known for regular appearances on Springwatch, Countryfile and BBC 6 Music. Jenny Sturgeon, acclaimed singer-songwriter whose recent project The Living Mountain is a collection of songs and films inspired by Nan Shepherd, is also part of it.
Bringing the musicians together during lockdown through pioneering online mixing software was the soundtrack’s producer David McEwan who has collaborated with the likes of Jeff Beck, and Sting.
There will also be an opportunity at the Seil film night to buy RNLI Christmas cards and gifts.
The ticket price to watch the film is £8 and donations will also be welcome in the RNLI buckets.
Caption: Launch! Image courtesy of Jack Lowe and NLS Moving Image Archive.
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