Film Recommendation by Allie Crewe ARPS
Mother Vera — Alys Tomlinson
****The Guardian Review
The opening of Mother Vera is unforgettable. A nun falls to the stone floor in devotion, her black habit folding around her like water. From the first frame, the viewer understands this is a work of quiet intensity. Directed by photographer Alys Tomlinson and film-maker Cécile Embleton, the film is shot in luminous black and white, its rhythm shaped by long, patient takes. Every frame could hang on a gallery wall, yet this is not simply an art film.
At its centre is Vera herself — magnetic, uncompromising, and deeply human. Sometimes silent, sometimes speaking with a striking honesty in voiceover, she does not allow herself to be observed passively. Instead, she invites us into her interior life. The effect is riveting.
Winner of the Grierson Award for Best Documentary at the BFI London Film Festival, Mother Vera is currently showing in cinemas and rewards the viewer with a powerful meditation on faith and presence.
Separate from the film, Tomlinson’s book Ex-Voto is the culmination of a five-year photographic journey to Catholic pilgrimage sites in Ballyvourney (Ireland), Mount Grabarka (Poland), and Lourdes (France). The work centres on the humble offerings left behind by pilgrims — wooden crosses, scraps of fabric, pages torn from notebooks — simple objects that become bridges between devotion and landscape.
Awarded the Sony World Photographer of the Year Award (2018) and 1st Prize in the Discovery Category of the Sony World Photography Award.
Ex-Voto has received international recognition, including the Sony World Photographer of the Year Award (2018) and 1st Prize in the Discovery Category of the Sony World Photography Awards. It remains a remarkable book to own.
About Allie Crewe MFA
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Master of Fine Art in Photography
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BA (Hons)
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Winner BJP Portrait of Britain 2023 & 2019
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Associate of The Royal Photographic Society
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Published in The Guardian and the The Telegraph Magazine
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And featured in WE ARE, The Women in Photography Magazine
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