I come by my love of film honestly. Such a trait appears to run along the matriarchal line. My Mum loves movies. My Aunts love movies. As a wee toddler, one of the first outings that motivated my parents (read: my Mum) to leave my new sister with our grandparents for the afternoon was to take me to see a movie. Across the years, some of my fondest memories are not only watching movies with my family but the times I sat rapt with attention at my Aunt’s table as she and my Mum played the Silver Screen edition of Trival Pursuit and talking about movies for hours.

What I didn’t know then was my love of film would grow far beyond the youthful desire to deliciously escape briefly into fantastical words to become a conduit of building compassion and empathy for the world around me. Film helps me connect and understand the human condition. My condition.

Sitting here now, I’ve just finished watching a film called LEMON. I’d be hard pressed to say I liked it through and through, but without question I appreciated it. The lead character is an unlikable, difficult man and the arc of his story is hard to watch despite being presented as a dark comedy. Yet even in the film’s most absurdist moments, everything about the characters and their stories is so deeply human  as it captures the ugly, unpleasant bits of the dark underside of our nature.

One of the many things I love about film — even the ones that don’t fully land for me — is that it asks me to extend myself. It asks me to consider experiences I haven’t had and to shift my perspectives on experiences I have.

Film gives me a way to connect when I feel isolated; a way to communicate when I’ve lost my words; a way to consider what is base and what is elevated in our individual and collective experiences.