NOA

Description

Noa, an older woman, recently widowed, must decide if she will abandon the house that she once shared with her husband to impending, disastrous floods. Noa decides she cannot bear to leave. Instead, she moves her life further and further up. Porcelain animals, once collected in pairs, now saved one by one. Noa watches her neighbours flee the floods. Nobody knocks at her door. No dialogue. She is so lonely she may drown herself in the rapidly rising water. Her eyes scan the flooding room. A record player comes to life and Noa sees wonderful memories from her past in full colour; their lit fire at Christmas, the day they painted over the wallpaper, (now visible again under the water soaked walls), the model porcelain animals once collected in pairs, one for each of them, proudly displayed…the record player sinks below the dirty water, silenced, sparking an image of her husband, dead. We’re back into tragedy. A lone rescue worker arrives - he’s come back for Noa. This young man remembers Noa and her husband. He remembers them as kind. Righteous. He persuades Noa that she deserves to survive. Noa escapes in his lifeboat, clutching her box of porcelain animals.

Biblical Connection

Drawing on the core narrative of Noah’s Ark, Noa is a respectful, resonant adaptation of this story, but with my own creative flair and focus. As a writer, I am conscious of the lack of representation for older women on screen and the impact of loneliness within the older population. In my adaption, Noa is a widow, grieving the loss of her husband and now being forced to abandon the home they shared. What happens when you once came in a pair, and now, it’s just you? The prospect of disastrous flooding is also the key event of both stories - being from York, this is of personal importance to me. My community has battled life changing flooding for years, so embracing this aspect of the story is a very real situation for me and something I know I can honestly represent. And finally, I want Noa as a character to truly embody what God said to Noah; “I have found you righteous in this generation”. Through Noa, I want to try and write a ‘righteous’ character, a woman who in this turbulent, confused society could represent righteousness; a character worth not just an audiences pity, but also their respect.