One of the reviews from a Swiss film festival:
“Both terrifyingly and playfully experimental in its execution, Alexis Kirke’s A Boat presents a frenetically touching portrait of memory’s persistence in the face of life-altering illness. We follow a man named Jamie through his symptoms of on-set dementia, specifically in the form of night terrors, which is intercut with fragmented, meme-reminiscent computer voice-over and inner dialogue from both Jamie himself and his lover (and perhaps a few hallucinatory players here and there), in addition to brain-scans, clinical descriptions accenting the imagery, and an arsenal of audio-visual flourishes that never detract from the narrative underpinning the chaos, but rather flesh out the rushes of anxiety and confusion driving it along that much further. The resulting effect is that we, as viewers, begin to at least grasp what it is to experience these symptoms, and so the sentiment of fading romance anchoring this protagonist’s physiological struggle pays off and hits its beats harder as it develops toward a genuinely heartfelt conclusion. Thus, from the beginning text that frames this film as an experiment into such an illness, to the lingering shots of a dark attic with sinister muttering to heighten the dread, to the final (quite beautiful) image, Kirke effectively uses a variety of media at his disposal to render a striking, energetic, and certainly original cinematic experience.”
CKF International Film Festival – Official Selection
Le Petit Cannes – Official Selection
Largo Film Awards – Official Selection
9th Jagran Film Festival – Official Selection
Fylde Film Festival – Finalist
Los Angeles Cinefest – Semi-finalist
Goa Short Film Festival – Official Selection
London X4 Seasonal Film Festival – Special Mention
Mental Health Arts and Film Festival – Semi-finalist