Hamnet

Hamnet is not primarily about Shakespeare as a writer or theatre-maker. It is about what happens when someone you love suddenly disappears - about grief, about the silence that follows, and about whether such a loss can ever be captured in words.

Hamnet, the eleven-year-old son of William Shakespeare, died in 1596. Historically, we know little about him: his name and date of death have been preserved, but otherwise he is mainly a footnote. Writer Maggie O'Farrell posed a different question in her novel: what if we took not Shakespeare, but his family - and the loss of Hamnet - as our starting point? What does such a loss do to a mother, a father, a family?

The film follows that thought honestly: grief has no neat beginning and end. Sometimes life simply seems to go on, sometimes the sorrow suddenly returns - in small moments, in memories, in silence.

This screening is part of The Week of Remembrance. Admission is free.