Reaching For The Moon

The Peccadillo release of Reaching For The Moon comes complete with a well-crafted set of extras.

Chief among them is a Making Of feature, running at 30 minutes. All the main cast and crew take part and the fact that it is directed by experienced filmmaker Fernando Coimbra (Wolf At The Door) shows. Producer Paula Barreto - director Bruno's sister - talks about how she first came to the story and the difficulties of raising money for a story of sapphic love, while Bruno outlines how an initial disinclination to take on the tale turned into keeness - "I became obsessed about the theme of loss. I thought it could be the common denominator".

If there is a theme here, it is the freedom that the cast and crew felt they had with the characters and the time period. Although research was done, nobody was scared to embrace the creative aspects of recreating this love story.

The featurette covers considerable ground - from costumes to casting, outlining the importance of colour schemes and the way the designers modelled a gown for Lota on a shirt and pants outfit because there was no photo from the period.

Bruno say of Miranda Otto (who plays Elizabeth Bishop), "In the 19 feature films I've made, I've never worked with an actor who was so committed." Just how determined she was is further outlined in an extended 10 minute interview with the director, in which he admits that he and Otto had some serious differences regarding the portrayal of Bishop. He also talks about the differences between literature and film as art forms and the importance of not being literal about the former.

Both the interview and Making Of are more in depth than many of their kind and make an effort to go beyond back-slapping celebration to talk about the creative processes and difficulties of bringing this sort of fact-based period piece to the screen. They are well-edited with good footage of the movie-making in progress to break up the parade of talking heads.

The package is rounded out by a brief featurette which elegantly shows, without description, some of the blue and green screen work, and digital effects used to transform the movie. The UK trailer is also included.