The Search is a fictional Irish short film made by Gavin Kelly, but sadly it is based upon events that are a regular occurrence for families that live in Derry. This film highlights one of those cultural differences in mental health. No mother should have to go on a search for her missing son, and to know there is an area where it is common is heartbreaking.
This short, shot over two days, shows what this experience is like from the perspective of one mother and her family. The film is beautifully shot, alternating from bird’s-eye-view pans of rolling boggy landscapes that show the enormity of the search and close-ups of the mother’s face depicting harrowing grief and the weight of her community’s judgement. The narrative flashes back and forth in time from when her missing son was just a little boy to when as a young adult, he started to stay out in the park drinking and not coming home. It would only be natural for any mother to feel guilt and wonder why she never saw the signs.
Maybe there were no signs, as the mother’s other son tells her. At the end of the movie, the mother finds the outside answer to what happened to her son. The devastating part is that we, as an audience, know that the questions she struggles with in her mind will never have a resolution.
The Search is now playing for free in Shorts Block No. 5 of the virtual festival through 11/5: https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2023/play/6519ba7f08ab3c006b976df2/6504837d689c5804f8a84b79
