Helen Walsh describes the Edinburgh International Film Festival as “the ultimate arts love-in.”

The British novelist and filmmaker, best known for her feature debut The Violators and Channel 4 TV thriller The Gathering, is discussing the Fringe, TV and Book festivals taking place this month, all set to cement the Scottish capital as Britain’s brimming creative hub across August.

Walsh first came to Edinburgh Film Fest with her directorial debut in 2016 and now returns to present the world premiere of her sophomore feature, On the Sea on Saturday. An erotic love story begins for Jack (Barry Ward), a hand raker on the mussel beds in a beautifully remote fishing community in north Wales. In an exploration of masculinity and desire in a small, isolated town, Jack assumes his son, Tom (Henry Lawfull), will join the family business after leaving school, but his resistance to follow in Jack’s footsteps causes familial tension. Things are further inflamed by the arrival of an itinerant deckhand, Daniel (Lorne MacFadyen) who makes known his feelings for Jack.

“It was loosely inspired by a man I knew who’d come out in his 40s and had been completely cut adrift from his family, friends and community,” Walsh tells THR of depicting a gay romance. “I wondered how it would be for a closeted man like Jack to exist in such a claustrophobic environment, and how he would navigate the fallout when his sexual identity came to light.”

With a wealth of talent among its supporting cast including Liz White, Celyn Jones and Danny Webb, On the Sea is described by EIFF director Paul Ridd as “queer cinema at its most candid, sensual and raw.” Below, Walsh talks about the themes explored in her latest project, why the story could easily exist in any rural U.K. or Irish town and which movies her team will be hoping to catch as the Edinburgh Film Festival gets underway.

How did On the Sea first come to you, and what made you think it worked so well as a feature film?

It was loosely inspired by a man I knew who’d come out in his 40s and had been completely cut adrift from his family, friends and community. But it was only when I found the mussel men of the Straits that the story really started to take shape. I created The Morgans, a family of brothers and sons who’d worked on the Straits their whole lives, in the scouring wind, bent to the currents, side by side. It’s a vanishing tradition, passed down from generation to generation and I wondered how it would be for a closeted man like Jack to exist in such a claustrophobic environment, and how he would navigate the fallout when his sexual identity came to light.

I’m from a novel-writing background where the interior lives and innermost thoughts of characters are made transparent to the reader. For an emotionally reticent character like Jack, who holds so much back, says so little, I thought the visual medium was a much stronger way of telling his story. Even at first-assembly, I found it a really moving experience watching this quiet, dignified character slowly unravel.

Tell me about the decision to explore those themes of masculinity and desire in this specific setting, a small and insular fishing town in Wales.

I’ve always been fascinated by masculinities, how different cultures and places and mediums construct them. As a kid, I loved the hyper-masculine males of Hollywood like Rambo and Rocky and the cool, sexy rebelliousness of Steve McQueen. And as a young woman, I loved the more nuanced constructions of masculinity that Claire Denis, Wong Kar-Wai, Jacques Audiard and Pedro Almodóvar were offering.

I’m interested in the ways in which hard, physical environments give rise to certain masculine ideals and how in certain small, coastal communities, these masculinities become closely aligned with tradition, stoicism and heterosexual marriage. The film is just as much about masculinity as it is about sexuality. But while the story is strongly embedded in place, it’s not specific to Wales — it’s a story that could easily sit in any of the U.K. and Ireland’s small coastal or rural towns.

Is there a message to be drawn from On the Sea, then, and if so what is it?

I think the message is that love and compassion always triumph. As humans, we can only cope with a certain amount of change and uncertainty and in an era of rapid flux, othering someone isn’t always about hating them, it’s about feeling threatened.

Jack has lived his whole life in fear of being found out within his community, but Daniel arrives and shows Jack that at least some of his fears are unfounded. But it is a simple act of human kindness from Jack’s son’s girlfriend, Lois, played by Leisa Gwenllian that redeems Jack and shows him that ultimately a more hopeful world might exist for him.

Do you hope audiences come away with that sense of optimism? What do you want them to feel?

I hope they’ll feel moved in some way — that’s all you can hope for.

Let’s talk about that great cast. How did you go about landing Barry, Celyn, Danny, Henry, Liz and Lorne, and why were they each so right for the role?

I’d seen Barry in Ken Loach’s Jimmy’s Hall and knew immediately that he had to play Jack. Our casting director, Alex Johnson, then set about finding Daniel. We were all blown away by Lorne’s reading, and we set up a chem test with Barry. They had such a lovely complex energy, and they continued evolving their characters right up to the shoot.

Liz lent Maggie a softness and a sense of agency that wasn’t quite there at script level. I know Celyn and he was very much in my thinking when I was writing Dyfan. Celyn’s family are from Anglesey and his screen son, Ioan, is played by his real-life son, Tristan.

On the Sea is now readying for its world premiere in Edinburgh. Have you had a film debut at the fest before, and how excited are you?

My first feature, The Violators, debuted at Edinburgh Film Festival, and I had my first ever book reading at Edinburgh Book Festival. It really does feel like I’m back on home turf.

I love the scope and ambition of this year’s program and there has been a real buzz around the festival in general this year. Our cast and producers have been sharing favorites from the upcoming program and the night before our world premiere, we’ll be watching The Young Mother’s Home by the Dardenne Brothers.

Why do you think these festivals are so crucial for the film industry, and what makes EIFF so special?

The exposure they give to emerging filmmakers in this especially challenging environment, makes the festival a lifeline. EIFF has always been a festival with heart and pluck, and with its connectedness to the Fringe, and fact that it runs parallel with Edinburgh Book Festival and the TV Festival, it makes it the ultimate arts love-in.

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 runs Aug. 14-20.