Documentary portrait of poet Mary Oliver, with her poems and rare interviews, part of the Poetry on Screen programme.
The Electric Palace is showing Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November, with both screenings starting at 11:00. It's a portrait of the poet Mary Oliver, directed by Sasha Waters, and it runs for 91 minutes.
Oliver is described as a quiet, queer icon whose poems have found a global audience, and who's been called the USA's 'unlikely contemporary mystic'. The film stays close to her language and the landscapes that shaped her writing, drawing on her own poems, excerpts from her prose and essays, rare interviews, and plenty of archival photographs and films. All that sits against imagery of the natural world that inspired her in the first place. It's a look at her work from the inside out, rather than a standard biography.
She's a figure who crosses a lot of divides: celebrated by liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers, nature-lovers and city dwellers. She's especially popular with younger readers, whose social media feeds have shared her work widely. The film brings in a fair few voices to talk about her, too — Stephen Colbert, Jason Reynolds, Oprah Winfrey, John Waters and Maria Shriver all appear. The screening is part of the Poetry on Screen programme and comes recommended by Chris McKenna.
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Both the Saturday and Sunday screenings are at 11:00, so it's a morning thing rather than an evening one. The film runs for 91 minutes, and you'll find it at The Electric Palace Cinema, 39A High Street, Hastings, TN34 3ER.
