Movie Matinee: Aftersun (Dir. Charlotte Wells, 2022)
Saturday, March 28, 4:00 p.m. The Dreamland Cinema, 1901 P St., Sacramento
Aftersun (2022) is a coming-of-age story told through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl named Sophie. The film centers on a seaside vacation Sophie spends together with her young father, Calum.
At first glance, their holiday seems like a typical parent-child vacation. Sophie treasures the time with her father. Under the surface, however, Calum struggles with emotional burdens, financial insecurity, and unspoken personal dissatisfaction, and he tries to shield his daughter from this inner turmoil.
Years later, as an adult with her own family, Sophie reflects on this holiday with a mixture of fondness and melancholy, trying to reconcile the loving father she knew with the complexities of the man he truly was.
Director Charlotte Wells has said the film is "emotionally autobiographical." While not a strict retelling of her experience with her own father, Wells made the film to understand and articulate emotions she hadn't fully processed as a teenager. The film explores themes of memory, love and grief alongside Sophie's nascent transition from childhood to adolescence and the coming-to-terms with the complexity of adult life entailed therein.
The film will be followed by a discussion facilitated by Danielle Martin, MA. Danielle is a fourth-year PsyD student at Alliant University's Clinical Psychology program in Sacramento. She also serves as the current Student Representative for the Sacramento Psychoanalytic Society. Her clinical experience includes providing short-term and long-term outpatient psychotherapy to individuals struggling with anxiety, OCD, and disorders of overcontrol. Incorporating psychodynamic and object relations frameworks, Danielle's other clinical interest areas include identity development, masculinity and men's mental health, and relationship concerns. Her dissertation exploring Catholic men's attitudes toward traditional masculine norms and help-seeking is expected to be completed later this year.
Join us! Drinks are available for purchase at the theater. Popcorn is free!