The Quesnel Film Club’s winter season kicks off this week with Maiden, a documentary from Alex Holmes.
The documentary chronicles the 1989-90 around-the-world sea voyage of Tracey Edwards and her all-female crew during The Whitbread Round the World Race (renamed the Volvo Ocean Race in 2001).
The film exposes the viewer to the sexist condescension which existed within the sport and the famous race while highlighting the courage, perseverance and skill of Edwards and her crew, according to the Quesnel Film Club’s brochure.
Maiden sheds light on what led to Edwards’s determination and drive to take part in The Whitbread, which had, until her voyage, been an exclusively masculine endeavour. The viewer is given access to Edwards’s formative experiences, an idyllic childhood abruptly ended by the death of her father, leading to rebellious teen years, resulting in expulsion from school, according to the brochure. Edwards would run away from home to Greece at the age of 16, where she would get her first taste of seafaring life. At first finding work as a cook on a ship, she would rapidly advance to deckhand and then first mate.
Chicago Tribune film critic Katie Walsh gave Maiden four stars and a shining review.
“With stunning archival footage and interviews with the amazing Maiden crew, Holmes captures that high in this stirring documentary that recounts not just the feminist achievement, but triumph of the human spirit,” she writes.
In Maiden, Holmes intertwines archival footage with present-day interviews with Edwards and her crew to collectively narrate the experience of the precedent-setting sea voyage.
The Quesnel Film Club will be showing Maiden at the Carib Theatre Thursday, Jan. 9 at 6:30 p.m. Regular admission is $10, while admission for seniors is $8. Anyone interested in learning more about the club can call 250-992-6298, email quesnelfilmclub@gmail.com or head to their Facebook page.
Read More: The Quesnel Film Club has released its winter 2020 schedule
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