by STEVE MARTINDALE
SS FILM FESTIVAL SOCIETY
An award-winning Australian documentary about a California woman who turns her home into a sanctuary for injured hummingbirds is the final film of the season presented by the Salt Spring Film Festival, in collaboration with Salt Spring Arts as part of the Unexpected Bateman Spring Art Show.
The film runs at Mahon Hall at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 17.
Featuring gorgeous time-lapse cinematography of flowers blooming and incredibly detailed high-definition shots of hummingbirds in flight, Every Little Thing is an uplifting and emotionally engaging profile of wildlife rescuer Terry Masear, inspired by her bestselling 2015 memoir Fastest Things on Wings, which documents the decades she has spent rehabilitating thousands of hummingbirds in her house in the Hollywood Hills.
An astonishingly immersive cinematic experience, Every Little Thing enchants audiences with the challenges, triumphs and tragedies of the smallest of rehab patients, some no larger than your fingertips, which we get to know individually by name.
Gradually revealing that Masear’s determination to rescue injured hummingbirds serves to heal the trauma of her abusive upbringing, the film’s deliberately narrow focus ultimately becomes its strength, as tiny dramas of resilience and survival unfold on screen in an unadulterated celebration of compassion and self-care.
Heartwarming and deeply moving, Every Little Thing was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, subsequently earning filmmaker Sally Aitken the Adrienne Shelley Excellence in Filmmaking Award at the Nantucket Film Festival and a nomination for the Australian Oscar for Best Documentary.
Sponsored by Mouat’s Trading Co., admission is by donation.