By Judith Gunn
Issue 24, March 2017
The last time I saw Josh Edmonds, was outside Vue Cinema in Stroud, it was cold and we were going to different films so we chatted in the queue. On March 16th at 7.30pm, Josh will be back at Vue Cinema, only this time in spirit, because Josh died in a road accident in Vietnam six years ago. He was twenty-two. He left behind his parents, a brother and sister and many, many friends. A Love that Never Dies is a film inspired by Josh’s life, his death and the trauma of the loss of a child.
Bereavement may seem to be a bleak subject matter, but the trailer and the clips I have seen reveal a bright film, vivid with light and smiles. Josh’s parents, Jimmy Edmonds and Jane Harris share their person-al journey; Josh is there, his humour, his youth and his life are celebrated. Jane and Jimmy visit Vietnam where he died, and carry on to India, to Varanasi, to finish his journey for him. They visited Mexico, the Grand Canyon and then they crossed America, the film is a good old fashioned road trip movie!
A Love That Never Dies evolved from Jimmy and Jane’s grief, their good grief. Jane is a therapist, Jimmy is a BAFTA Award winning filmmaker (Chosen) and Josh was a filmmaker. When he died Josh was working as a producer at the Ministry of Sound in London. As a result, in the days that followed his death, the family found that they were immersed in images of, and films about and by Josh. There was the sky jump he did at age twenty-one, there were the films he had made at college, and the Ministry of Sound sent them a filmed tribute for the funeral. “When I was preparing that stuff for the funeral” Jimmy commented “that was within two or three days of when Josh had died and I am still working with him on the screen…So making the film about the funeral was about continuing to have his presence.” Jane and Jim-my met at film school and had made films together before about their personal journey so it was a natural progression to decide to film the funeral itself. Jane says part of it was “the strangeness of not being there when he died, not being able to say goodbye” and that created a response in them and many others to say goodbye using film.
But after the funeral a sense of isolation set in and the couple became involved in an organisation called the Compassionate Friends, which enabled them to talk to other parents who had also lost a child. They then helped Jimmy and Jane set up contacts in America where Josh and his parents had shared their last holiday, and the road trip that is A Love That Never Dies began.“Josh died travelling…we thought it would be amazing just to do a road trip, a homage to Josh” says Jane.
And did they enjoy it? “Loved it” says Jimmy, “We had a brilliant time”. “And Josh was with us. The thing about Josh was that he loved music, we love music, so just driving and listening to music, we felt like big teenagers!” adds Jane. But this was a road trip with a focus. “Trauma is a really important part of this, there is not a single bereaved parent who has not been traumatized…, and one of the ways to deal with it is to immerse yourself in it.” says Jane.
Being able to talk to each other and to the camera was part of the process for the parents they met, and for Jane and Jimmy themselves. “We could actually get these stories because we are ourselves bereaved parents.” adds Jimmy “people would not talk to us, if we didn’t have a similar experience”. So the film tells the stories of bereaved parents and how they deal with the loss of a child. Such a loss is unique to each parent, but it is also more commonplace than anyone wants to think. Jane and Jimmy had 60 applications to participate, they Skyped with 12, chose 11 to film and completed 80 hours of film.
Not surprisingly, once they were back home, editing the film was difficult. It was a question of finding the balance between their own experience, Josh’s life and the experiences of others that made the film a challenge to edit and demanded some difficult decisions. “We made a promise” says Jimmy “to everyone who participated in the film, that if they were not in the documentary, they would have a film on the website.” So they created The Good Grief Project (a registered charity) which has a website where the stories not told in the documentary are shown on the site. Jane and Jimmy have been running bereavement, photography and mindfulness workshops and counselling, as part of this project, and they are continuing to do that and to make more films. The Good Grief Project allows more parents to apply to have a film made about their loss, their child and their good grief.
A Love That Never Dies will have its Charity Premier at Vue Cinema in Stroud on March 16th at 7.30pm as part of this year’s Stroud Film Festival. Visit stroudfilmfestival.org for tickets and thegoodgriefproject.co.uk and facebook.com/thegoodgriefproject for further info.
Judith Gunn was lecturer at Cirencester College where she taught Josh Media Studies. She is the author of Dostoyevsky: A Life of Contradiction which is available now via Amberley Publishing judithgunn.com
UPDATE! On Tuesday 21st April we will be screening This Is Purgatory on our YouTube channel - a short film by Jimmy Edmonds for Random Stroud, an arts project in which 24 artists were invited to respond to randomly selected map references in the Stroud Valleys area of Gloucestershire. Jimmy’s map reference was Purgatory Wood a small copse just to the south east of Swift’s Hill in the Slad Valley.But what starts out as an attempt to find out why Purgatory Wood is so called quickly becomes a fascinating series of character studies and a reflection on life now and the life hereafter. Click here to see the live premiere at 8pm
As well as our recent project (Good On Paper TV) following Good On Paper’s current hiatus over the next few month’s we will be putting up articles from our archives for our readers to easily access and share…Community and culture can carry on in different ways. For now….