American Doctor – three US medics expose the conditions inside and outside Gaza’s Nasser Hospital (Docs Ireland at Queen’s Film Theatre on 17 June and then UK/Ireland release from 25 September)

Three American-born doctors travel to Gaza during a 2025 ceasefire to work in the Nasser Hospital hospital. This isn’t their first rodeo and while they’re comfortable leaving their cosy lives in the US behind to work in a warzone, they’re still shocked by the environment in which their patients are living and undergoing treatment.

Hand surgeon Mark Perlmutter is a Jewish American. He’s outspoken, calling Israel’s action “a genocide”. He wonders if his tax-dollars have paid for the munitions that are injuring the children he’s treating. Trauma surgeon Feroze Sidwa was born the US to Pakistani parents who belong to the non-Muslim Parsi minority. Emergency medicine physician Thaer Ahmad is a Palestian American, born in the US. At first, he is refused entry to Gaza: not all American doctors are treated equally.

Right from the outset, American Doctor pitches itself as an examination of morality. Whether it’s a medic arguing with filmmaker Poh Si Teng about why the bodies of dead children shouldn’t be pixelated, critiquing US news networks who push back on their lived experience of the conflict, or questioning why hospitals – including the one they volunteer in – are targeted by Israeli forces.

Following the three men around the hospital in operating theatres, hospital corridors, and phone calls home builds up a sense of the crazy normal of the Nasser Hospital. Pain medicine is in short supply. Gaza’s health infrastructure has been decimated. Equipment that would offer better patient outcomes simply isn’t available. An ambulance riddled with bullet holes sits around the back of the hospital near a mound of earth on the site of a mass grave burying the dead from a previous attack in the vicinity.

While the camera follows the three Americans (who mostly fail to fall into the “white saviour” stereotype) it lingers on the patients – children and adults – and the local staff who have to live all year around in a region that is under attack.

With foreign journalists banned from entering Gaza, the doctors are happy to talk to the media to relay what they’ve seen and experienced. They face presenters on the big US networks who default to an IDF-believing/Palestinian-sceptical stance. Everything the doctors say is questioned and challenged. Yet everything Israeli sources state in press releases seems to be taken as gospel. Senior American politicians receive the doctors politely in Washington DC corridors of power, but don’t seem to be sympathetic to their perspectives.

The doctors question why civilian hospitals are being attacked in what they see as a breach of Geneva Conventions. They see no evidence of secret tunnels under the buildings in which they work. When Israeli forces break the ceasefire and bomb the hospital’s second-floor male surgical ward (justified as targeting someone on the ward who is deemed to be a terrorist), one doctor is forced to operate again on a patient he’s already treated.

Some audiences will swerve this film, believing that the IDF are totally justified in targeting Hamas terrorists and that nearby innocent civilians, medical staff and facilities are necessary ‘collateral damage’. They’ll deem American Doctor to be pro-Hamas propaganda without even viewing it. Nothing to see here.

But if you want to judge for yourself the many moral questions for Israel, Gaza and big nations like the US that are raised in this film, you can catch a screening at 18:15 on Wednesday 17 June in Queen’s Film Theatre on day two of Docs Ireland documentary film festival. American Doctor will also be released in UK and Irish cinemas from 25 September. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

It’s also worth noting that earlier this year – after filming had completed – Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) suspended its work at Nasser Hospital for three months. Extracts from the MSF FAQ explain:

On 13 April 2026, MSF resumed core medical activities at Nasser hospital. This resumption comes after we initially suspended non-critical medical activities on 20 January. We had made the difficult decision to suspend non-critical activities after our colleagues witnessed a series of incidents, including the presence of masked armed men, others engaging in intimidation and carrying out arbitrary arrests of patients, and one incident that involved the suspected movement of weapons, all of which are completely unacceptable.

MSF raised our concerns regarding the management of the structure, the safeguarding of its neutrality, and security breaches to the relevant authorities. We have continuously engaged with Gaza’s Ministry of Health since and have determined that the concrete improvements taken by the relevant authorities, such as measures to restrict the entry of weapons, provide the minimum conditions required for our teams to work safely and in line with our working principles ...

Nasser hospital is a critical lifeline, and one of the last remaining, partially functioning Ministry of Health hospitals in Gaza. It must be respected and protected as a civilian medical facility, in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Our calls shouldn't be instrumentalised. We have seen Israel obliterating the health system in Gaza with the justification that they are being used as command centres or for military purposes, which we never witnessed. The hospital must be spared from Israeli attacks, and it must not be used for any military purposes by Hamas or any other armed groups. The lives of countless Palestinians depend on it. Hospitals must remain neutral, civilian spaces, free from military presence or activity, to ensure the safe and impartial delivery of medical care.  

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Displace: The Battle For Dublin – a story of rebuilding community in the midst of precarity, planning and protest (Docs Ireland at An Cultúrlann on Thursday 18 June)

Ireland’s housing crisis is multifaceted. Displace: The Battle For Dublin documents buildings lying derelict, landlords choosing to ‘no fault’ evict families on their sixth anniversary renting flats, artists being thrown out of their studio spaces despite being long-standing tenants, pockets of land that service communities being redeveloped for profit.

The lack of accommodation (affordable or not) is argued to be a result of commercial overdevelopment, exploitation of poor renter protections, and underinvestment in initiatives that could heal fractured communities.

James Redmond’s gentle pacing introduces the audience to people living precariously, unsure if their poorly maintained accommodation will ever be repaired (there’s an example of a large landlord taking nine years to fix a broken window), people wondering whether they’ll have a home to live in this time next year. We are introduced to individuals who are organising neighbours to form tenacious residents’ groups that can stand up to their wealthy landlords. And we see when lobbying and meetings turn to last ditch street protests.

There’s a quick lesson in ‘asset urbanism’, the concept of the rich making decisions about the urban landscape, using it as a playground for making money, with home owners and small commercial and cultural renters pawns in a bigger game of wealth extraction. Pockets of land become instruments of investment rather than habitats for humans to live and thrive.

Dublin is not alone in having a housing crisis. Locking people out of the city in which they grew up is common. Local government enabling commercial companies to delay redevelopment is not unusual. But despite the Celtic tiger, despite Dublin being the European home to so many multinational tech giants, it’s particularly chilling that there is such underinvestment in community-building that would benefit citizens in this city.

In Belfast and elsewhere up t’north, the derelict buildings tend to mysteriously combust at night, sometimes making it more necessary to be demolished. It’s hard to watch the film without wondering what a thriving North Street Arcade would be like and why the poorly-named Tribeca Belfast project had been allowed to stagnate for so long. Maybe the scenes about the ‘blandmarks’ walking tour will inspire a Belfast version being developed.

Displace: The Battle For Dublin carries a sense of lament throughout its 100-minute essay on the accommodation crisis. The sense that hope is being lost is strong. But its humanisation weaves in moments of celebration and appreciation amongst the sequences of communities being pulled apart or squashed.

Throughout the film the character of buildings pops out from the screen with gorgeous black and white cinematography. Good people look tired. Protests look earnest. The final credits list contributors like a roll call of saints.

The last sequence suggests that a minor victory might be around the corner for one community. Yet the very fact that so many people need to move off the site for a number of years leaves the lingering worry that the redevelopment could still be delayed or dropped. It feels like a cake-fuelled ending that may yet have to fade into a title card that says “six years later, none of the residents were back living on the site”. Hopefully that’s not the case …

Displace: The Battle For Dublin is being screened as part of the Docs Ireland documentary film festival at 19:00 on Thursday 18 June in An Cultúrlann. Docs Ireland runs from 16 to 21 June. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

  

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Previewing Docs Ireland 2026 - six days of documentary delicacies (16-21 June)

Documentary film festival Docs Ireland is back for the eighth time with a smorgasbord of films.

The majority of screenings are Pay What You Want.

Amid the myriad of shorts, talks and screenings, here are a handful that caught my eye from the chunky programme.

Tuesday 16 June

Steal This Story // 18:30 at QFT // The festival’s opening night gala spotlights the work of independent US journalist Amy Goodman who has been telling stories neglected by larger networks and holding the powerful to account for over three decades. Goodman will be present for a Q&A after the screening. SOLD OUT

Wednesday 17 June

American Doctor // 18:15 at QFT // Three US physicians return to Gaza during a ceasefire. Their work in operating theatres and hospital corridors is documented before they return home and take what they’ve seen to the corridors of power and the US Congress. (REVIEWED)

Thursday 18 June

Once You Shall Be One Of Those Who Lived Long Ago // 12:00 at QFT // A northern Swedish town is slowly collapsing into the iron ore mines beneath it. Prosperity goes hand in hand with disappearance. A melancholic, humorous and absurd look at a settlement in its dying days.

Now We’re Talking: Michael J Murphy and Sam Hanna Bell on screen // 13:00 at PRONI // Celebrating two important local cultural voices – folklorist and playwright Michael J Murphy and producer/author/editor Sam Hanna Bell – whose personal archives have been donated to the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland and have been catalogued and curated. A TV profile of Murphy being interviewed by Bell will be followed by a radio interview with Bell reflecting on his writing life, finishing with a film created by Drumintee Primary School inspired by the work of Murphy. (The same programme will also be screened in the shadow of Slieve Gullion in Tí Chullainn in Mullaghbawn at 19:00 on Saturday 20 June.) [You can find out more about Michael J Murphy in the Nerve Centre podcast series I helped make earlier this year with a group who explored his archive.]

Displace: The Battle For Dublin // 19:00 at An Cultúrlann // Gorgeous black and white cinematography and remarkable community building shine a light on the multi-faceted housing crisis in Dublin. Asset urbanism is stripping money out of areas along with the communities that enlivened them. But can citizens meaningfully fight back? (REVIEWED)

Ghost in the Machine // 20:30 at QFT // Vlerie Veatch’s documentary pores over the history of Artificial Intelligence and its ties between governments and private equity. Can we trust the people fashioning the regulation and holding the purse strings?

Friday 19 June

Trop C’est Trop (Enough is Enough) // 18:15 at QFT // The enduring conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo rarely makes it to news bulletins or newspaper reports. Elsié Sawasawa’s film bears witness to the Congolese people trapped in the endless fighting as the Congolese army protecting a regional capital are overpowered by rebels in just four days.

Lesbian Lines // 18:30 at QFT // Director Cara Holmes explores the hidden history of the underground network of lesbian helplines that operated across Ireland, mixing fear with fun and a celebration of togetherness as women who felt trapped found a chink of light. (REVIEWED)

Saturday 20 June

Desert Passages // 18:00 at QFT // Look after your water sources and waterways before it’s too late. With the 1,450 mile long Colorado River being diverted to new settlements and industry along its path down form the Rocky Mountains, the borderlands of the US and Mexico are experiencing drought. A brooding documentary with gorgeous visuals. (REVIEWED)

Cutting Through Rocks // 20:15 at QFT // Sara is the first elected councilwoman in her Iranian village. The complexity of Iran is displayed as she challenges patriarchal traditions by training teenage girls to ride motorcycles and stopping child marriages.

Sunday 21 June

Earth, Wind & Fire // 15:00 at QFT // Tracking the fractious yet fructuous history of the experiment band who started out as afro-gospel-jazz-blues-rock and would go on to define disco sound with songs like Let’s Groove Tonight.

Magilligan // 18:15 at QFT // The festival’s closing night film (preceded by the festival awards ceremony) presents a portrait of Ryan, a teenager imprisoned for a violent offence who finds purpose working on the prison farm but upon release finds his past hard to shake off. After the screening, Belfast director Ross McClean will be interviewed about his feature debut by Myrid Carten (director of last year’s closing film A Want In Her).

The full programme can be viewed on the Docs Ireland website.

Lesbian Lines – the network of helplines that offered connection, protection and solidarity (Docs Ireland in the Queen’s Film Theatre on Friday 19 June)

Quite a number of LGBT organisations across the island have recently been sifting through their archives and reflecting on many decades of support and advocacy. In parallel, a number of cultural productions have been documenting the early days of these groups. Kabosh staged Dominic Montague’s Callings (2022) looking back at Cara Friend helplines. Kabosh and Montague were also responsible for the electrifying A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe (2019)

Films like Rebel Dykes (2021) give a sense for the lesbian scene in London in the 1980s and 1990s. Cara Holmes’ new documentary Lesbian Lines hears from women involved with the network of lesbian helplines that ran – and continue to run – across Ireland. What starts off as a celebration of the almost underground community offering connection, protection and solidarity then examines key moments of lesbian visibility in Ireland, before acknowledging some of the darker calls the helplines received.

Back in 1980, 26-year-old Joni Crone appeared on The Late Late Show. Host Gay Byrne asked “What would compel a girl like you to appear on a programme like this and blow as it where her cover?” Later Byrne in the interview would refer to lesbians as “these people”. The host adopted a patronising tone throughout, but Crone kept her cool – perhaps aided by the backstage vodka someone in the production team recommended to calm her nerves! – and explained what it was like to live as a lesbian in Ireland.

Cinematographer Aidan Gault uses shadows and dim lighting for the interviews that sustain the storytelling. It’s almost like the women are sitting in a closet. There’s a mix of testimony, dramatic reconstruction and conversation.

Outburst Queer Arts Festival director Ruth McCarthy is among those interviewed. And there’s a snippet of archive from Free Presbyterian minister Rev David McIlveen to remind viewers of the opposition to homosexuality. Footage of the security search barriers on Royal Avenue grounds the film in a period of history which will seem alien to younger audiences but remain all too vivid for some of us oldies.

Last year’s Docs Ireland festival screened the Housewife of the Year documentary (which Holmes edited) about the now-jarring pageant of domesticity. Lesbian Lines opens a door onto another side of how society in Ireland slowly changed.

Responsible for the clamouring soundtrack of Irish folk horror Fréwaka, Die Hexen sensitively allows scenes to breath: there’s no sense of urgency, and when the mood dips, the music fades as more sombre and tragic moments are remembered. A volunteer recalls a woman ringing up in a distressed state before being cut off when an angry man comes into the room. Beaten up by her husband, she dials back the next week from hospital. Another volunteer remembers callers contemplating suicide.

Voiced up conversations based on the extensive phone logs give an insight into the vulnerability of those moments, and intimacy of people feeling safe enough to open up to a stranger and remove their mask.

Like another Docs Ireland screening – Displace: The Battle for Dublin – Lesbian Lines is a film about a silenced section of society nurturing community, allowing people to find their voice and find their tribe. Considerable fear is mixed in with fun and a celebration of togetherness as women who felt trapped find a chink of light.

You can catch Lesbian Lines at the Docs Ireland documentary film festival at 18:30 on Friday 19 June in Queen’s Film Theatre. Docs Ireland runs from 16 to 21 June. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

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Desert Passages – brooding documentary about a disappearing water source (Docs Ireland in Queen’s Film Theatre on Saturday 20 June)

Snow melting in the Rocky Mountains provides up to 90% of the water flowing down the 1,450-mile-long Colorado River. It’s all but dried up by the time it reaches the ocean. Desert Passages is a gently told story of decline. There’s less snow to melt. Water is evaporating from reservoirs faster than before. Population and agricultural growth along the flow means that water is being “diverted to people as opposed to moving people to water” as one contributor explains.

Beautiful cinematography serves up striking vistas. Red stone contrasts with concrete dams. A drone camera flies low over the water like a modern recreation of a scene from 1980’s Air Wolf. Tide marks along the side of rock faces show the huge change in high water level.

The contributors are thoughtful rather than angry. There’s a stoicism that talks of adapting to the new reality of drought rather than voluntary or forced displacement of populations to land that can better support them. Towns in Arizona truck water in. The landscape becomes increasingly barren as the river almost impotent in its final hundred mile stretch into Mexico. Homes and habitats have changed forever. Climate refugees are on the rise but have no protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Desert Passages is a brooding documentary that places layers of similar detail on top of each other like a papier-mâché construction. The quickly established premise that access to water isn’t evenly spread and made worse by human decisions is almost diluted by repetition. The visuals distract from the oral duplication that stretches the film out to 77 minutes.

The film’s many moments of silence will give time for Northern Ireland audiences to consider the plight of Lough Neagh. While it’s a story of pollution from agriculture and sewage, exacerbated by arising summer temperatures that allow the blue-green algae to bloom, Jan Carson’s latest novel Few and Far Between imagines a populated archipelago in the lough, created by a government programme to reduce the water level. The residents face an existential threat of a flood to tackle the algae bloom in this fictional universe. (Just one of a number of threats the author conjures up!)

Look after your water sources and waterways before it’s too late. That’s the message of Kevin Brennan and Laurence Durkin’s new film that is being screened as part of the Docs Ireland documentary film festival at 6pm on Saturday 20 June in Queen’s Film Theatre.

PS: Watch out for the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope.

Docs Ireland runs from 16 to 21 June. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

  

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Previewing Belfast Film Festival – some picks from this year’s smorgasbord of cinematic treasures (Thursday 30 October to Saturday 8 November) #BFF25

Belfast Film Festival is 25 years old. This year’s smorgasbord of cinematic treasures will be screened between 30 October and 8 November. Here are some of picks from the gazillion films on offer in the full programme (PDF).

Thursday 30 October

19:00 | Die, My Love | Cineworld | Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson star in Lynne Ramsey’s film (co-written with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch and based on Ariana Harwicz’s novel). An intense exploration of a new mum Grace whose depression descends into psychosis as she lives in the solitary Montana countryside.

20:40 | The Love That Remains | Queen’s Film Theatre | As a rule, anything Icelandic merits viewing at Belfast Film Festival. An artist leaves a large-scale sculpture to rust in the Icelandic landscape. Her husband almost lives on a fishing trawler. Land and sea are separated, much like the couple’s union. Hlynur Pálmason directs. Panda, the family dog, won the Palme Dog award at Cannes.

Friday 31 October

19:00 | Aontas | Cineworld | Damian McCann (Doineann) and Sarah Gordon’s new Irish language thriller is a noir heist where three women rob a rural credit union.

Saturday 1 November

20:00 | Undisclosed Mark Cousins Project | Black Box | Flâneurial obdoc What is This Film Called Love (2012) and Here Be Dragons (2013, set in Tirana) are my favourite Mark Cousins’ movies. More recent efforts like But 6 Desires: DH Lawrence & Sardinia and I Am Belfast (being screened on Friday 7 at 18:00 in the Beanbag Cinema at 18:00) fell flat. If you’re willing to sign an NDA, you can catch a screening of a new secret project from cineliterate Cousins ...

Sunday 2 November

10:30, 12:30, 14:30, 16:30 | New Irish Shorts | It’s great to see some familiar faces – and some new names – screening their work in the New Irish Shorts programme, with a shout out for Nick Larkin’s Punt, Conor McCauley’s handpainted animation Behold!, Louise Parker’s Jeggies and Will McConnell’s A Tourist Story.

13:00 | The 1939 Diary of a Belfast Cinema-goer | Black Box Green Room | While I’m totally against the concept of reducing the complex multi-dimensional ways in which a film can be judged to a number of stars out of five, I do keep a spreadsheet throughout the year with actual stars (and a couple of justifying sentences) as a shorthand so I can quickly filter out the best and worst films for Banterflix’s end of year review TV show. I’m not planning to ever make the spreadsheet available. But perhaps the Belfast resident who used their own rating system to log the 325 films they saw in 1939 – no sitting on the sofa watching streaming services at x1.25 speed in those days – didn’t expect their diary to be the focus of a talk by cinema historian Sam Manning. With no name or address on the diary, what clues did the cinematic critic leave.

15:15 | It Was Just An Accident | Queen’s Film Theatre | A family driving home hit a stray dog. Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s film sets a series of dominoes falling as attempts are made to identify the driver. Surreal humour mixed with brutal political oppression. (reviewed)

17:30 | Rosemead | Queen’s Film Theatre | The American dream slips out of Irene’s hands when she is widowed. A window into the rarely portrayed on film Chinese community in Los Angeles. Introduced by Lucy Liu (who plays Irene).

17:45 | A Private Life (Vie Privée) | Queen’s Film Theatre | Jodie Foster stars as a psychiatrist unpicking the threads of the death of a Parisian patient in this French-language psycho drama. (reviewed)

18:30 | Zodiac Killer Project | Black Box | An unidentified serial killer murdered at least five victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969. Charlie Shackleton set out to make a documentary about the so-called ‘Zodiac Killer’ for a streaming service. Despite the world being saturated with true crime shows, his proposed streamer doc wasn’t green lit. This film-behind-the-film explores the tropes and conventions of true crime, and sheds some light on the one that got away. Followed by Q&A with Charlie Shackleton. (Which all reminds me of a bum-numbing screening of Zodiac back in 2007.) 

20:40 | The Secret Agent | Queen’s Film Theatre | A university researcher comes under scrutiny from the dictatorial Brazilian regime. Set in the 1970s with many nods to that era’s cinema, a bittersweet historical story rooted in the present. (reviewed)

Monday 3 November

21:00 | Lucky Lu | Queen’s Film Theatre | A New York delivery rider’s only source of income, transport and accommodation are lost on the eve of his family arriving from Taiwan. The great American dream is in tatters in this pressure cooker of a film, a contemporary reimagining of Bicycle Thieves. (reviewed)

Tuesday 4 November

16:00 and 18:30 | NI Independents Mid-length Programme | Odeon | Some longer but not quite feature length local independent cinema, including Olcan McSparron’s Petyr which follows a group of small-time criminals who bugle a heist and learn about betrayal and violence. 

18:30 | Office Politics | Odeon | Neill Virtue’s bawdy North Coast sex comedy about the colliding lives and loves of three office workers. Misunderstandings, mischief and mayhem. (reviewed)

21:00 | Fior Di Latte | Queen’s Film Theatre | Even for an anosmic like me, memories can be tied to smells. A playwright struggling for inspiration returns to the perfumed scent of his most treasured holiday … taking ever more desperate measures to find the smell and fulfil his dreams. Throw in the unrequited love of a flatmate and you have Charlotte Ercoli’s offbeat comedy feature debut. (reviewed)

Wednesday 5 November

18:00 | Underscore | Odeon | Ian McElhinney and Jessica Reynolds star as bewildered relatives on the frontier of a strange new world. A grandfather and granddaughter face up to the end of the world, the end of their environment, as the very fabric of reality mutates into something new. Directed by Hugh McGrory. (reviewed)

20:00 | Housejackers | Odeon | A darkly funny psychological drama about family and identity from the twisted minds behind the Funboys sitcom. Raymond (Finnian Garbutt) and Jerdy (John Travers) deliver magnetic performances as two foster brothers who move in together, upsetting the vibe of a middle-class student house and threatening to explode their rekindled bond. Directed by Rian Lennon. (reviewed)

Thursday 6 November

18:00 | Bulk | Queen’s Film Theatre | Ben Wheatley’s film takes a madcap plunge into the unknown as a Bogart-like protagonist investigates an elusive scientist whose string theory experiments threaten to break down the dimensions of reality. Back-projection, model car chases and cardboard. A freewheeling lo-fi odyssey through the multiverse.

18:45 | Lesbian Space Princess | The Avenue | Animated comedy space adventure with a heartbroken space princess trying to rescue her kidnapped ex-girlfriend from the clutches of the Straight White Maliens. Fast, funny, unserious, with a belting soundtrack. (reviewed)

Saturday 8 November

15:15 | Kontinental ‘25 | Queen’s Film Theatre | A tragic eviction causes a bailiff to see philosophical solace. Dry wit and subtle symbolism from auteur Radu Jude in this ‘side project’ filmed in Cluj on an iPhone that went onto win Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. (Jude’s take on Dracula is being screened on Sunday 2 November.)

16:00 | Ulster Says No – The Year of Disorder | Black Box | Created entirely from UTV archive footage, this documentary follows the year of turmoil that followed the signing of the Ango-Irish Agreement at Hillsborough Castle. “Never! Never! Never! shouted Ian Paisley at a rally outside Belfast City Hall. Clontibret was ‘invaded’. The red bereted Ulster Resistance took up ‘arms’. Relive the moment Northern Ireland almost tipped into the abyss through this archive footage and the UTV news teams. (reviewed)

19:00 | Saipan | Cineworld | The festival closing gala screening returns to Belfast directors Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (Ordinary Love and Good Vibrations – being screened on Wednesday 5 at 18:45 in The Avenue) whose new film takes a comedic look at the 2002 Japan World Cup falling out between Mick McCarthy (Steve Coogan) and Roy Keane (Éanna Hardwicke).

20:30 | Sirât | Queen’s Film Theatre | A rave in southern Morocco. A missing woman. Illness. Landmines. Death. The end of the world. Oliver Laxe’s fourth film was fêted at Cannes and won the Jury Prize. A movie whose soundtrack and landscapes suit the big screen. Are you willing to walk the narrow bridge between heaven and hell?

Another gem ...

Running throughout four days of the festival is A Bunch Of Questions With No Answers. A record of questions posed by journalists to the US State Department at press briefings between 3 October 2023 (four days before the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel) and the end of the Biden administration. Endless demands for clarification and accountability were swerved by spokespeople … and edited out of the 23 hour film, which runs in six-hour blocks from 10:00-16:00 on Saturday 1, Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 November, and 16:00-21:00 on Thursday 6 in the Beanbag Cinema. Free entry, just drop in. On Saturday 8 November at 14:30 in the Black Box Green Room, a panel of journalists will discuss their response to the film, its wider context, and the large number of deaths of journalists in Gaza during the last two years.

Previewing the 2025 Belfast International Arts Festival – theatre, dance, music, magic ... and raw chicken (14 October–9 November) #BIAF25

Belfast International Arts Festival starts today and the programme (PDF) looks like a bumper year for theatre in particular.

Ireland’s National Dance Company is back in Belfast with a revival of Emma Martin’s Dancehall. // Wednesday 15 October at The MAC. (sold out)

Jolene O’Hara lends her spine-tingling voice to Richard Clements’ Ottilie, based on the life of Northern Ireland blues singer Ottilie Patterson who grew up in Comber, sang with the best blues artists touring the UK, performed in the US, but then became a recluse. // Wednesday 15–Friday 24 October at Grand Opera House Studio Theatre. (reviewed)

Unreconciled is based on the true story of a young lad cast as Jesus in a Philadelphia school play directed by a parish priest. A survivor’s journey to confront his past, find his voice, and navigate the reparations program set up by the Catholic Church. Powerful, heartbreaking … but also promises to be hilarious. Friday 17–Sunday 19 October at the Lyric Theatre. (reviewed)

If you enjoyed last year’s dance Wild performed on a scaffolding forest, there’s more free aerial theatre to enjoy on the afternoon of Saturday 18 October in CS Lewis Square. Anchored in Air is a fusion of circus, dance, text and live music with flying wheelchairs, and acrobatics from the disabled and non-disabled cast.

One of my all-time favour shows from Richard Wakely’s festival programming was Pending Vote in 2013 where the audience controlled some the narrative – or thought they did! This year, Nathan Ellis beings his theatrical experiment Instructions to Belfast following its 2024 Edinburgh Fringe success. Each night a different unrehearsed actors steps on stage ready to react to real-time prompts as a story unfolds and a life unspools. Tuesday 21 and Wednesday 22 October in Lyric Theatre.

John Morton’s Denouement fast forwards to 2048 where Edel (Anna Healy) and Liam (Patrick O’Kane) are living out their final hours in a remote Irish farmhouse. Bickering in the face of the apocalypse. Holding and sharing secrets. Tragic, absurd and funny. Tuesday 21 October–Saturday 15 November in Lyric Theatre. (reviewed)

When a man ‘Older’ returns to the abandoned house of his use, he meets the memory of his first love. As the home collapses around them, Older relives the electricity and heartbreak of a hidden romance. Ciarán Haggarty’s The Upside Down House is directed by Patrick J O’Reilly and produced by Tinderbox Theatre. Wednesday 22 October–2 Sunday 2 November in The MAC. (reviewed)

Dylan Quinn’s My Grandfather’s House received is an intimate physical performance by a grandfather and a grandson within a reconstructed 1970’s living room that holds just four audience members. Tuesday 28 October–Sunday 2 November in a secret location. (already sold out)

Big Telly Theatre Company are back with a razor-sharp ensemble bringing to life a horror-filled fever dream Faust-ish from the pen of Nicola McCartney. Distraction, desperation and desperate deals under the direction of Zoe Seaton. Wednesday 29 October–Sunday 9 November in Lyric Theatre. (reviewed)

Cahoots NI are presenting the Northern Ireland premiere of The Musicians of Bremen Live! inspired by the Grimm’s fairy tale with live music, storytelling and surprises as Ruffles the lost hen meets Mule, Bobcat and Coyote and chase their dream to be a famous band. Thursday 30 October–Sunday 2 November in Cityside Retail Park. Age 5+. (reviewed)

Magician Caolan McBride is on stage Unlocking Sherlock and exploring the connections between deduction and deception in another Cahoots NI show. Thursday 30 October–Sunday 2 November in Cityside Retail Park. Age 16+. (reviewed)

Off the Rails Dance is showing a work in progress from Eileen McClory. BPM: Barneys, Parties and Melters plunges into the 1990s-2000s rave scene in Northern Ireland with energy, euphoria, and lots of sweat in a blend of contemporary dance, theatre and archive material from that era. Saturday 1 November in the Brian Friel Theatre (next to the QFT).

With instruments crafted from PVC pipes, paint cans, and shampoo bottles, HOOLA is an electrifying collective from Daegu city in Korea that reimagine opera arias and EDM anthems through the pulse of upcycled sound. Tuesday 4 November at The MAC.

Acclaimed author Bernie McGill will be in conversation with High Odling-Smee about her archive and her career. Friday 7 November in The Linen Hall.

And the annual Royal Ulster Academy Exhibition will be open in the Ulster Museum from Sunday 19 October until January 2026.

Another exhibition in the programme caught my eye. Raw Chicken will be performed live by Éabha Campbell and Indigo Azidahaka, a Dada-inflected performance that is participatory rather than passive with puppetry, costume and nonsense narration. Saturday 8 November in Queen Street Studio. (Exhibition runs Thursday 9 October–Thursday 13 November.)

The majority of this year’s theatre/dance programme is showcasing locally-created work rather than bringing international work to Belfast (which is admittedly cost-prohibitive, particularly for anything larger than a solo-performer show). It’s Richard Wakely’s last year at the festival’s helm and it’ll be interesting to see how Chris McCreery puts his stamp on next year’s programme. One of his achievements has been a persistence in showcasing local and international dance, though it’s mostly only the circus/acrobatic acts that have drawn sizeable audiences. A decade and a half ago, the talks events were a particularly vibrant aspect to the programme, bringing colourful, challenging and often high-profile guests to Belfast and packing out good-sized venues. Better defining what makes BIAF ‘international’ and distinct from other large festivals should be a key priority for McCreery to address.

You can browse the full programme on the festival website or the brochure.

2000 Meters to Andriivka – brutal first-person footage of a bloody push towards the liberation of a strategic village in the war between Russia and Ukraine (Queen’s Film Theatre on Sunday 29 June as part of Docs Ireland) #docsireland7

A slender forest between two minefields is the route into the village of Andriivka. Two kilometres of contested space. Capturing Andriivka back from the Russians will cut off their supply line to a larger city. It has been the heavily fortified front line for the Ukrainian counteroffensive in September 2023.

Film director Mstyslav Chernov (20 Days in Mariupol) and journalist Alex Babenko negotiate to embed themselves with a platoon intent on liberating the village. A flag is being carried to be hoisted if and when they succeed.

If you watch 2000 Meters to Andriivka in a cinema setting, the opening scenes of conflict in the trenches will be sonically and visually immersive. Enemy drones equipped with explosives are spotted. Incoming artillery fire from Russian troops kills two soldiers. The personnel carrier sent to evacuate the Ukrainian unit gets stuck. More casualties follow, including the soldier whose helmet cam footage we’re watching.

The sound of explosions. Turning around. Firing off a few optimistic rounds in the direction of a threat. It’s like a watching a video game. Except this bloody reality is what video games are based on.

The command centre uses overhead drones to gather intelligence on enemy positions. When the camera feed starts to lag, everyone goes blind. A suicide drone can be seen exploding over the suspected enemy position. Moments like these are clinical. The loss of life is unseen.

Other footage throughout the 106-minute film is harrowing. Battle footage from soldiers in the 3rd Assault Brigade shows dead bodies and burnt out vehicles that are left behind in the crawl towards the target. Troops apply tourniquets to injured colleagues while gunfire rattles over the top of their heads. Negotiating with the last Russian soldier inside a trench to surrender or else be killed with a grenade they’ll throw into his hide. At times you’ll feel like flattening yourself against the ground.

During one of the lulls in the fighting, a soldier contemplates the changes he’ll make to life when he gets out of here. Just smoking a “normal amount” might be on the cards along with an evening stroll. A colleague enjoys the act of rolling his own cigarettes: it’s relaxing and takes time.

Chapter slides document progress towards Andriivka. The battlefield supplies most of the soundtrack, with Sam Slater’s uncluttered score faded up like a wailing banshee only when there’s a quiet moment.

After 75 minutes the film pauses for a funeral and women’s voices are finally heard, as partners and mothers grieve and process the cost of the conflict. A forest of flags flutter above a graveyard. Then we return to a final push towards Andriivka in the face of falling odds as the overall counter-offensive stalls.

While the film shows the grit and determination of the Ukrainian forces who have been ordered to capture this strategic location, it ultimately reinforces the futility of war. When they arrive, there’s barely anything left in the village that stands taller than a person. A small cat is the only survivor to greet them. The same village will be retaken by the Russians less than a year later. The cost on all sides is huge.

It’s is not a film about heroism. It’s not even a film about right pushing back on wrong. Instead, 2000 Meters to Andriivka is a memorial to the men who took part in this one tiny part of a much larger and longer conflict. It marks the names and faces and so many who lost their lives. And it is a testament to what happens, and who suffers, when capitulation isn’t an option.

2000 Meters to Andriivka is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre at 18:15 on Sunday 29 June, the closing evening of the Docs Ireland festival of international documentary film.

 

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How To Build A Library – two women battle history and poor local government to rejuvenate three Nairobi libraries (screened as part of Docs Ireland) #docsireland7

Friday evening’s screening of How To Build A Library was an unexpected companion film to Thursday’s excellent The Shadow Scholars. We’re back in Nairobi, Kenya following two women who seek to rejuvenate a library.

Angela Wachuka and Wanjiku Koinange are ‘can do’ characters who have given up their jobs to form the Book Bunk Trust. They have a strong vision for transforming the McMillan Memorial Library – the city’s oldest library and for the exclusive use of (white) Europeans until opening its doors to everyone in 1958 – into a community space where everyone would be welcome and see themselves represented in the shelves which are currently dusty and full of titles purchased before Kenya’s independence in 1963.

The filming takes place over eight years (2017–2024). There are many setbacks, the least of which is Covid.

Structurally, the documentary’s ambition and raw material is very promising. The main library building is crumbling and unloved (post-independence, there was very little investment). The two satellite branches that they also control in Kaloleni and Makadara will take less work to turn around. The pair’s initial five-year contract is quickly at odds with the hard-to-navigate local government bureaucracy which is very slow and driven by political ambition rather than public service delivery. The team of librarians – who spend much of the film underlining that they are professional – are not on board with the women’s vision and appear to be actively working against it. Personal struggles threaten to dampen energy levels too.

The longitudinal study shows a build-up of culture clashes. The librarians openly speak in front of the cameras against Angela and Wanjiku’s plans. International funding is enthusiastically secured on the condition that a much longer lease is agreed with the local government. A royal visit brings publicity, but also echoes the colonial history that the project is trying to expurgate. After years of contact, the main political patron can still not remember Angela and Wanjiku’s names: this lack of attention to detail rather satisfyingly foreshadows her political downfall.

Yet there’s another cultural clash that seems to be allowed to remain under the carpet and unexplored by directors Maia Lekow and Christopher King. The cycle of affluent fund-raising galas and international aid suggests that decolonisation is easier to achieve than flattening class structures. The voices of some ordinary ‘library users’ are heard, but the very people and communities that the renovation projects are supposed to be benefitting aren’t allowed to become the heart of this tale.

As a lover of libraries – I’d happily work and/or live in one! – the scenes showing the refurbished satellite libraries full of young children and families are heart-warming. The power of archive is demonstrated powerfully in a later scene where the pair’s political nous has developed to the point that they are learning to ‘play’ the local political figures to move the project forwards.

However, some of the strings that have been threaded throughout the documentary’s narrative are left unsatisfyingly loose. The chief librarian confidently declares that he is “indispensable” … which is usually a sign that he’ll be forced to resign in about 10 minutes time. By the end of the film, he’s neither eating humble pie nor a fulsome partner in the project. The debate over how to classify the non-fiction books is never resolved. (The Dewey Decimal Classification system first devised in 1876 has a very American/European bias, so books about American and European literature occupy 810-889, with the rest of the world squeezed into 890-899, and all of Africa under 896. Why go to all the bother of revitalising the balance of books on the shelves if the non-fictional classification system will systemically devalue African titles.)

How To Build A Library successfully charts the ups and downs of managing a large project that has the potential to change lives. Material that critiques wider issues – the shocking failure of Kenyan public officials post-independence, and the reality of political priorities rarely having room for altruism – comes across as being timid in tone, and could have been more fully powerfully integrated into the narrative to show the parallels between the library project and Kenya in general. Scenes of street protests from 2024 (which continue to be in the news this week) are tacked on, although powerfully echo earlier scenes of protests around Kenya’s independence.

The Docs Ireland festival of international documentary film continues until Sunday 29 June. There’s still time to check out a range of fabulous screenings.

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Born That Way – a couple’s commitment to radical inclusion comes full circle in this film that celebrates Patrick and Gladys Lydon (screened in Ulster Museum on Saturday 28 June as part of Docs Ireland) #docsireland7

Born That Way is a tender film that traces back Patrick Lydon’s journey from reporting on the Woodstock festival in America, to finding love with his soulmate Gladys in Ireland, and their joint selfless devotion to fostering ways of people of all abilities to live and work together, taking responsibility and contributing to the extent they can, realising their potential in a positive and culturally rich environment.

Patrick and Gladys set up the rural Camphill Community in Ballytobin, County Kilkenny before investing their time and energy in nearby urban Callan. Patrick Lydon describes the early Camphill communities as outliers to Ireland’s programmes of institutionalisation, using a social model that takes account of medical issues but finds ways to work and live together.

While sectarianism and racism are forms of prejudice much spoken about in modern Ireland – and there are many others I’m not listing – ableism is perhaps the most deliberately overlooked. Reasonable adjustments are sometimes made if someone goes out of their way to request them. Rarely is accessibility baked in from the outset. Rarely is the distinction dropped between carers and service users to create a radical inclusion where everyone is treated as a colleague and coworker.

Éamon Little’s film avoids steering into the ditch of hagiography, partly by showing so many clips of community in action – scenes where everyone becomes a star as they garden or build – and partly because it’s Gladys that we see adapting to Patrick’s failing health and including him in conversations and decisions in the same way we witnessed him doing with others earlier in the film.

Patrick and Gladys react to his diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease by applying the same practices and principles that they had been living out for four and a half decades. Their investment in community was repaid when other people gathered around to create a modest accessible home in which he could live and be cared for.

A natural encourager, the pattern of Patrick effusively thanking the colleagues he’s working with on the extended garden is repeated as his health declines and without fail we hear him thank Gladys and carers for hoisting him out of a chair or into bed. He’s a man with a deep inner joy and peace, and a consistency even under pressure, that is incredibly winsome.

Born That Way celebrates the life of Patrick Lydon. The moving documentary also challenges viewers to find their own ways to build on the legacy he cultivated in Camphill Communities and beyond, to be blessed by others while in turn blessing them.

The 98-minute documentary is being screened in the Ulster Museum on Saturday 27 June at 11:30 as part of the Docs Ireland festival of international documentary film (which continues until Sunday 29 June).

 

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The Shadow Scholars – Kenyans being paid to complete other people’s university educations (screened in Queen’s Film Theatre as part of Docs Ireland) #docsireland7

As I walked up towards Queen’s Film Theatre for this evening’s screening, I was passed by scholars in their finery accompanied by their families fresh out of this afternoon’s graduation ceremony (School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences) in the Whitla Hall. Years of study, assignments and exam success being celebrated.

Tonight’s film – The Shadow Scholars – examined the work of talented graduates in Kenya who cannot find employment and instead write essays and complete assignments for paying students in European and north American universities. How many of those graduating at Queen’s University Belfast had bought an essay or procured help with their coursework along their way to getting a degree?

How many – or how few – were caught?

Professor Patricia Kingori has been investigating this academic industry for a long time. It’s a step up from plagiarism. A transaction initiated by those with the financial resources (a 2,000 word essay with a seven-day deadline might cost the guts of £150) but lacking the time or the ability. The talented individuals – entrepreneurs you might say – will never be publicly credited despite completing someone else’s homework to a standard that won’t be spotted by markers.

Kenya became independent in 1963, ‘taking back control’ or ‘making Kenyans great again’ as modern political rhetoric might phrase it. Yet today, the lack of employment opportunities for graduates who ably demonstrate their subject knowledge, intellectual prowess and work ethic (often churning out papers for submission as students panic close to deadlines) means that some Kenyans are silently working for those descended from the colonisers. Both client and service provider benefit, though not in equal measure. The authors’ work isn’t acknowledged, their pay is low, and often reduced by the cut taken by account managers on popular websites.

It’s estimated that 40,000 people in the Kenyan capital Nairobi are working as shadow scholars. But the students paying for other people to do their coursework are also shadows. Millions of people have been awarded degrees that along the way involved passing off other people’s work as their own.

A 97-minute documentary that just unpacked the practice and ethics of faking essays could be quite a stretch. But the documentary writer and director Eloise King is a queen of her craft. Every time it felt like the story was about to complete its circle of discovery, the radius would pull out and another aspect would be thrown in for the next revolution.

While Kenyan people who successfully graduated from their own university courses continue to prove their academic proficiency in the high-pressure factory ‘essay mills’ where they may dispatch several pieces of coursework a day (not just a few times a term), their qualifications and their bank accounts will usually not gain them entrance to study post-graduate courses in the kind of institutions whose students are already paying them to do their work.

Born in Kenya before moving to St Kitts and then to London, Prof Kingori became the youngest black professor at Oxford or Cambridge, and the youngest woman to ever become a full professor at the University of Oxford.

The film reveals how her own PhD research was ‘stolen’ by a senior academic who submitted a paper to a journal. To say that the process of challenging this shady incident was disempowering would be an understatement. Despite her academic reputation and research topic, the film documents another more recent incident of a high-profile organisation using her work with duly acknowledging its provenance.

These experiences feed into Prof Kingori’s belief that there’s a racial and geographic dimension on top of a gendered way of looking at this disrespect. Another example of invisible power being wielded.

Eloise King rightly keeps The Shadow Scholars’ focus on those doing the work and writing the essays. (A failing student in the US is interviewed. She sold nude pictures in order to raise the funds to commission a stranger to complete an assignment.) This spotlight on the uncredited talent extends to Prof Kingori’s experiences of academic malpractice.

The documentary circles around again and explores the impact of generative AI on the fake essay industry. The number of requests is falling, causing financial hardship for the otherwise unemployed Kenyan providers (this on top of some governments cracking down and trying to ban selling websites – treating the symptom of contract writing not the condition of cheating students). Yet, students seem more likely to be caught using (free) AI to produce coursework than using (paid) shadow scholars. Maybe the tide will turn again? After all, it’s the students – whether panicking or lazy or inept – who create and sustain the market.

Does the practice of having the opportunity to complete a university education but getting someone else to the work mark those individuals forever? Will they carry on taking credit for other people’s effort in the workplace?

What is the point of a university degree if you haven’t done the work? (The value is already questionable in some subject areas as what is taught is of zero use in the workplace. My maths degree gave me the opportunity to pick up lots of computer skills in the huge gaps between lectures: the applied maths was of zero use in 21 years of full-time employment, and in the last 10 years as a freelancer, no one has asked if I even have a degree, never mind what the classification was.)

At the halfway point of the Docs Ireland festival of international documentary film (which continues until Sunday 29 June), The Shadow Scholars is my favourite film by far, well crafted, good storytelling, keeps expanding the viewer’s mind, presents complicated subjects without disguising their complexity. Keep checking in for other reviews in case something betters it!

 

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Latina, Latina – an unhurried reading of a father’s memoir of a fascist train tour (DocsIreland in Queen’s Film Theatre on Thursday 26 June) #docsireland7

A phone call from Berlin forces an Irish geology lecturer working in Bolzano, Italy to travel to Berlin. She’s the next of kin for her estranged father who is unconscious in hospital after a fall. She spends the night alone in his apartment, reading from his detailed diaries, learning about his past, his interests, his friendships, and his travels across Italy.

What follows over 84 minutes is almost an illustrated novella, a radio play with light visualisation, a work of art with an accompanying verbal script. Latina, Latina has been labelled as a hybrid-documentary, though feels – particularly with the somewhat tragic ending – like it would more comfortably reside in the fictional side of the movie library classification system.

Director Adrian Duncan takes his audience on a trip down through Italy, with the woman’s father travelling with his friend Carlo, noticing sculptures and historical artefacts that celebrated the ideas of Mussolini’s Italy. A fascist bus tour – by train – if you like to reach the coastal city of Latina. And a tale of friendship.

Wendy Erskine leisurely narrates the travelogue diary entries without gratuitous emotion. Her voicing of the woman’s inner thoughts and memories have a little more expression, but are still unhurried as if sleepy after the journey to Berlin. The pacing is so relaxed that if this was a car, it would stall. The father studies architecture. The daughter’s interest lies in the rocks from which the buildings were constructed. Will her dive into his past encourage her to reconnect with her absent father.

The cinematography slowly pans across objects: it’s almost as if the audience are reaching out to touch them, to feel the texture of pages and rocks and textiles. The colour palette is dominated by shades of concrete grey with sporadic pastel bursts. Outdoors, the camera’s eye is caught by brickwork and statues. On the few occasions the camera stops and fixes its gaze, drops of rain will keep some movement in the frame. The images complement the narration. Periodically the geologist will appear on screen, played by Sabrina Mandanici.

Latina, Latina is a tale of melancholy, even before the sorrow hits. It is being screened at 20:15 on Thursday 26 June in Queen’s Film Theatre, followed by a Q&A with writer/director Adrian Duncan, as part as part of the Docs Ireland festival of international documentary film which runs until Sunday 29 June.

 

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From Ground Zero – 22 glimpses into what has become normal for people living and creating under conflict conditions (screened at DocsIreland)

What happens when creative people are trapped in a conflict that threatens their existence and the lives of their loved ones, displaces them from homes into a series of tented cities, cuts off their supply of food and water, consumes all their nervous energy?

From Ground Zero is a curated anthology of 22 films made in Gaza. Each filmmaker’s response to their new situation differs. For some, the enduring conflict has inspired new artistic expression. For some, creating is a means of release. For one, it became too much and a gentle story about a donkey cart (“Taxi Waneesa” directed by E’temad Weshah) has been left unfinished after the death of her brother.

There’s a mix of video diaries, fictionalised incidents, poetic responses, testimony about what now passes for normal life, polemics about hopes and dreams, puppets, and even some stop motion animation. There are a lot of cats. There is a complete absence of politics.

Death has become numeric. Whole family circles of contributors have been killed in the collapse of buildings. Dying has become mundane and part of Gaza’s new normal. The matter of factness disguises the trauma. Several of the short films refer to previous periods of conflict and the enduring suffering and compound distress and insecurity.

Everyday objects have been imbued with new significance: a dress someone was almost killed picking up, an art portfolio that was a young woman’s route to a university course in a campus that was subsequently destroyed.

There’s a lot of frustration and futility. Chasing parachutes dropping food aid feels exciting until the men with the biggest trucks and toughest gangs pick up the supplies and don’t share them. Scraping flour off the road, now mixed in with sand epitomises the deep despondency. A story about a man fruitlessly searching for water, food and charge for his mobile phone ends with him still being thankful to those who couldn’t or wouldn’t help him.

So many scenes involve scavenging for wood to light fires to cook food and heat water. Without electricity and appliances, everything reverts to old-fashioned practices. The constant sound of overhead drones is the background sound to almost every film. Everyone is tired and exhausted.

Children explaining that their parents write their names in black marker on their limbs so their bodies would be identifiable in the event of them being killed in an attack. Jet plans road overhead. There are no secure underground bunkers in which to take refuge, only unstable building that could form your permanent resting place if rescue is not quick.

While there is despair, there are also bursts of happiness. Singing and dancing survive the war. The children’s stop motion animation project – which deserves a whole documentary to itself – is clearly therapeutic, helping youngsters process what’s happened to their homes and their families. Some of the younger contributors appreciate that there is beauty around them, even if they grasp it right now. A man (“24 Hours”, directed by Alaa Damo) rescued from the rubble of collapsed buildings – pressed up against other family members who died in the hours or days it took to be pulled free – still look thankful to be alive.

Just shy of two hours long, time flies as the 22 films paint their picture of life From Ground Zero. The sense of pain is searing. The circumstances that make this anthology possible (and necessary) are cruel. But the witness of resilience and human spirit rising above loss ultimately offers some hope.

From Ground Zero was screened as part of DocsIreland festival of international documentary film which runs until Sunday 29 June.

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