Description
This new DVD about the ordinary life of a lighthouse keeper’s life, is portrayed in this banal story filmed in various locations in Maine, including Moose Peak Lighthouse and Owls Head Lighthouse. It tells the story of the lighthouse keeper’s wife who is literally and figuratively at the edge of society, pressing the glass ceiling.
Set in 1867, and inspired by the true stories of female lighthouse keepers, To Keep the Light is an empowering assertion of womanhood. On an isolated island along the windswept coast of Maine, salt-of-the-earth homesteader Abbie is left to care for her bedridden husband, the lighthouse keeper plus keep the light burning for those at sea. When a seafaring European lands on the rocks, Abbie fears she may have caused his ship to crash. Now also nursing this foreigner, Abbie is tasked with maintaining both the household and the lighthouse – a post forbidden to women at the time. She finds purpose in this new role, but secrets buried in the deep waters emerge, putting her opportunity for independence in jeopardy. Winning the prestigious Fipresci Prize, Best Director at Berlin Indie Film Fest and a host of other awards, To Keep the Light paints a landscape of stark, aching beauty; illustrates the complexity of loss; and offers an untold (her)story of women’s liberation in an era when they were meant to be seen and not heard.
DVD. Running time: 88 minutes.
