The setting, captured with arrestingly atmospheric cinematography, is an isolated island along the windswept coast of Maine. There, salt-of-the-earth homesteader Abbie is left to her own devices while caring for her bedridden husband, the lighthouse keeper. When a seafaring European washes ashore, Abbie fears she may have caused his ship to crash. Now also nursing this foreigner, Abbie is tasked with keeping the household afloat and working the evening shifts at the lighthouse—a post forbidden to women at the time. She finds purpose in this new role, but secrets once submerged in the Atlantic waters threaten to resurface, putting her opportunity for independence in jeopardy.
Set in 1867, and amalgamated from the true stories of female lighthouse keepers, To Keep the Light is an empowering assertion of womanhood. It illustrates the complexity of loss and offers an untold (her)story of women’s liberation in an era when they were meant to be seen and not heard. As writer, director and lead actress, Erica Fae is like a shimmering light through the fog. She delivers a layered and restrained performance, deconstructing the inner workings of a strong, sensual and stoic woman bumping up against the glass ceiling of her time. (VIFF)
Erica Fae brings radical stories from history onto the stage and screen. Her first feature film as writer/director/producer/actor, To Keep the Light (on a woman lighthouse keeper in the 1860s), was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize (International Critics’ Prize/Mannheim), Best Director (Berlin Indp), Best of Show (BendFilm), Best Emerging Director (St. Louis Int’l), 2 Best Narrative Feature Awards (Ojai and Port Townsend), and 2 Best Cinematography Awards (Woods Hole & Las Vegas). It also screened at Vancouver Int’l Film Fest, and was nominated for festival prizes at Woodstock, Florida, Nashville, New Hampshire, Filmfest DC, and Salento (Italy). She also won Best Short and Best Actress prizes for her short, Christine 1403; and her play, Take What Is Yours (on suffragist Alice Paul) was named a Critics’ Pick in The New York Times and Backstage. Her recent play, Saved Again and by Him - based on and interrogating Sarah Wakefield's 1860 memoir from the Dakota Uprising - premiered at the New Ohio, NYC. She is on the acting faculty at the Yale School of Drama (now David Geffen School of Drama at Yale), has taught Directing Actors at Columbia's Grad Film Program and The Film Academy Baden-Württemberg (Germany). She wrote on Directing Actors for Filmmaker Magazine, and was a guest panelist at Sundance on filmmaking and social justice. To Keep the Light is distributed by Gravitas (US/Canada) and Flix Premiere (UK/France), and is available on Amazon Prime.
