Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle

As a volunteer at the Vancouver International Film Festival, I earn a pass; so I don’t have to pore over the film catalogue for hours, reading myriad blurbs in order to select a handful of movies, only to find that all of the two or three screenings are sold out. With a pass, I can go down to the cinema whenever I’ve got a couple of free hours and pick up a ticket for the next movie playing. That is how I saw Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle (Simon Miller), the first Gaelic-language movie. Seachd ( “seven”) is the age Aonghas is when he and his siblings are orphaned and sent to their grandparents; seachd is also the number of folk tales his grandfather tells him throughout the film. These tales usually come in response to one of Aonghas’s outbursts: grief over the death of his parents, or frustration that he is being forced to use a language that itself is dying. After the screening, the young actor, Padruig Moireasdan, politely (if stiffly) answered questions posed by audience members. Then an elderly man stood up and asked a question in Gaelic; Padruig’s face lit up, and he and the man then conversed for a few minutes, as though no one else was there. When the moderator took up the mike, I expected him to translate; instead, he asked how many in the audience spoke Gaelic, and three-quarters of the people in the packed house raised their hands.