ON THE SEA

ON THE SEA is a smoldering, deeply intimate drama from Helen Walsh, set along the wild, unforgiving coast of North Wales—where the pull of the tide mirrors the pull of desire. The next Chicago premiere from the QUEER EXPRESSION FILM FESTIVAL, the film has been praised as “atmospheric and emotionally resonant” by the BFI London Film Festival.

Jack has built his life on routine, labor, and silence, working the mussel beds with a quiet resilience shaped by tradition and expectation. But when Daniel, a younger drifter with nothing to lose, arrives and meets Jack’s guarded world with disarming honesty, an undeniable tension begins to surface—charged, dangerous, and impossible to ignore. Critics have called the film “visually striking… a powerful sense of isolation and connection” (Eye for Film), capturing both the stark beauty of the landscape and the emotional distance between the men.

In a community where masculinity is rigid and watchful eyes are everywhere, their connection unfolds in glances, in proximity, in moments that feel both fleeting and inevitable. What begins as curiosity deepens into something far more consuming, forcing Jack to confront the life he’s lived—and the one he’s denied himself. With its “quiet, poetic filmmaking and vivid sense of place” (Film Carnage), the film builds a world where silence speaks as loudly as words.

Ultimately, ON THE SEA is a story of longing, risk, and the quiet urgency of a love that refuses to stay buried—what Variety describes as “a windswept, deeply felt story of love and longing.”