Last night at SIFF Cinema Uptown I watched Rose of Nevada, and it’s one of those rare films that completely defies expectations. At first, it feels like a quiet story about a struggling fishing village searching for hope. Then a trawler that disappeared with its crew thirty years ago suddenly returns to the harbor, and what follows becomes part mystery, part ghost story, and part deeply emotional time-travel drama.
I loved how the film refuses to explain everything. Instead, it lets the mystery unfold naturally, inviting you to simply experience it. As the crew realizes they’ve somehow stepped back into 1993, the story becomes less about the mechanics of time travel and more about memory, loss, and the lives we might have lived if circumstances had been different. The Cornish coastline is breathtaking. Mark Jenkin captures it in a way that feels both beautiful and unsettling, making the sea feel like another character in the story. Every frame has a weathered, almost dreamlike quality that perfectly matches the film’s haunting atmosphere.
George MacKay and Callum Turner are fantastic together, grounding the increasingly surreal events with performances that feel completely authentic. Their characters aren’t trying to solve a puzzle as much as they’re trying to understand where and when they belong. Watching it at SIFF was the perfect way to experience a film like this. The audience sat in complete silence through so much of it, completely absorbed by its atmosphere. Strange, beautiful, and quietly unforgettable.
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