The next Kitchen Stove Film Series movie is a remarkable story about an unlikely hero who finds himself a victim in a political plot, discovers love in the strangest place and learns to believe in the impossible.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a 2011 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor and Kristin Scott Thomas.
A visionary sheik believes his passion for the peaceful pastime of salmon fishing can enrich the lives of his people, and he dreams of bringing the sport to the not-so-fish-friendly desert.
Willing to spare no expense, he instructs his representative to turn the dream into reality, an extraordinary feat that will require the involvement of Britain’s leading fisheries expert Fred Jones (played by McGregor) who happens to think the project both absurd and unachievable. That is, until the Prime Minister’s overzealous press secretary Patricia Maxwell (played by Thomas) latches on to it as a ‘good will’ story.
Now, this unlikely team will put it all on the line and embark on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible, possible.
Stuffy government fisheries scientist Jones is asked by a fishing-obsessed Arab Sheik to do the seemingly impossible — introduce British salmon to the Wadis of the Yemen. Despite considerable trepidation, Fred is finally won over by the charismatic Arab, who reveals that fishing brings him closer to God, and he hopes it will have the same effect on his countrymen.
Fred, who has Asperger’s syndrome, also begins to fall for the Sheik’s beautiful legal representative Harriet (played by Blunt). So he rises to the sheik’s eccentric challenge, casting off his English reserve on a transformational journey of self-discovery and late-blooming love.
Jones tells Harriet he is in love with her just as her boyfriend, who went missing in action in the war, returns.
This leaves her in the dilemma of choosing between two men. All of this takes place just as the project seems to be succeeding, but local militants have something else planned.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is based on the novel of the same name by Paul Torday. The Kitchen Stove film series also is screening a short called Sunday by Canadian animator Patrick Doyon. In 2011, Sunday was nominated for an Academy Award in the short film animated category.
This animated short is a love letter to children’s imagination.
After church, a family gathers at grandma’s and grandpa’s. It’s a Sunday like any other, except for the factory closing that has the grown-ups worried. As usual, a young boy chases away his boredom by playing with coins on the railroad tracks.
He finds, to his surprise, that there are amazing sides to some coins. This animated fable for the whole family shows us how important it is to see life through a child’s eyes — even on a grey Sunday afternoon.
Tickets are $12 and are available at the Penticton Art Gallery and the Book Shop. Showtimes are at 4 and 7 p.m. on April 19 at the Pen Mar Cinema Centre.