We all have that friend you share good news with first. Their reaction is jubilant, fizzing, maybe even a little Ott. They’re happier for you than you are for yourself. That was Lyra McKee for director Alison Millar.
McKee, an investigative journalist from Belfast, was just 29 years old when she was shot in the head by a stray bullet and killed during New Ira riots in the city of Derry, Northern Ireland. She had been reporting on the violence that had erupted on the Creggan estate, and was posting up-to-the-minute updates to her Twitter account. She’d been expected at a dinner at Millar’s the very next day, where the BAFTA-winning documentary maker had agreed to make her favorite: Lasagne. McKee never made it.
“We were going to have dinner at my house on Good Friday. It was going to be Anna Burns, who’d won the Booker...
McKee, an investigative journalist from Belfast, was just 29 years old when she was shot in the head by a stray bullet and killed during New Ira riots in the city of Derry, Northern Ireland. She had been reporting on the violence that had erupted on the Creggan estate, and was posting up-to-the-minute updates to her Twitter account. She’d been expected at a dinner at Millar’s the very next day, where the BAFTA-winning documentary maker had agreed to make her favorite: Lasagne. McKee never made it.
“We were going to have dinner at my house on Good Friday. It was going to be Anna Burns, who’d won the Booker...
- 11/14/2022
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
25 new titles on release this week including ‘Call Jane’, ‘Watcher’.
Oliver Hermanus’ Akira Kurosawa adaptation Living heads a bumper weekend for new releases in UK-Ireland cinemas, with 25 new titles playing across the seven-day period from October 31-November 6.
Released by Lionsgate in 257 cinemas, Living is an English-language adaptation of Kurosawa’s 1952 filmIkiru, with the story moved to the UK in the 1950s. It follows a veteran civil servant – played by Bill Nighy – who receives a medical diagnosis that inspires him to put some fun into his remaining days.
Nighy received one of nine nominations for the film at the British Independent Film Awards (Bifa) this morning,...
Oliver Hermanus’ Akira Kurosawa adaptation Living heads a bumper weekend for new releases in UK-Ireland cinemas, with 25 new titles playing across the seven-day period from October 31-November 6.
Released by Lionsgate in 257 cinemas, Living is an English-language adaptation of Kurosawa’s 1952 filmIkiru, with the story moved to the UK in the 1950s. It follows a veteran civil servant – played by Bill Nighy – who receives a medical diagnosis that inspires him to put some fun into his remaining days.
Nighy received one of nine nominations for the film at the British Independent Film Awards (Bifa) this morning,...
- 11/4/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
An intimate documentary on the writer, who was shot dead at a riot in Derry, is released this week – tracing her impact on those around her and the fury that followed her killing
There is a scene in Alison Millar’s film about Lyra McKee, the murdered Northern Irish journalist, where she interviews supporters of a man charged with involvement in the killing. They cluster outside a courthouse shouting insults at police. It is cold and wet. Some men in the crowd shield their faces but two women speak openly to the camera.
The suspect is innocent, they insist. Millar tells them Lyra, who was shot during a riot in Derry on 18 April 2019, was like a daughter to her. The women express condolences. Millar suggests they could help their accused friend by identifying those who did kill Lyra. “We can’t comment on that – we don’t know who done it,...
There is a scene in Alison Millar’s film about Lyra McKee, the murdered Northern Irish journalist, where she interviews supporters of a man charged with involvement in the killing. They cluster outside a courthouse shouting insults at police. It is cold and wet. Some men in the crowd shield their faces but two women speak openly to the camera.
The suspect is innocent, they insist. Millar tells them Lyra, who was shot during a riot in Derry on 18 April 2019, was like a daughter to her. The women express condolences. Millar suggests they could help their accused friend by identifying those who did kill Lyra. “We can’t comment on that – we don’t know who done it,...
- 11/3/2022
- by Rory Carroll
- The Guardian - Film News
Lyra McKee, killed by the New Ira in 2019, is shown here as an inspirational LGBTQ journalist, bravely addressing the lingering damage of the Troubles
Here is an admirable documentary about the brilliant life and tragic death of author and journalist Lyra McKee, shot dead in 2019 at the age of 29 by a stray bullet from the New Ira as she covered riots in Derry’s Creggan estate. Apart from being a grotesque homicide, perpetrated by swaggeringly unrepentant and clumsy extremists, the McKee killing represented a culture clash and a generational collision. An inspirational young LGBTQ writer, McKee came from a Republican community in Belfast, had written on depression among the post-Good Friday generation, challenged the UK government’s line on the 1971 Ballymurphy massacre, confronted homophobia in Catholicism and Islam, investigated the class inequality of the new peace dividend and – perhaps most importantly of all – started on what was set to be her first major work,...
Here is an admirable documentary about the brilliant life and tragic death of author and journalist Lyra McKee, shot dead in 2019 at the age of 29 by a stray bullet from the New Ira as she covered riots in Derry’s Creggan estate. Apart from being a grotesque homicide, perpetrated by swaggeringly unrepentant and clumsy extremists, the McKee killing represented a culture clash and a generational collision. An inspirational young LGBTQ writer, McKee came from a Republican community in Belfast, had written on depression among the post-Good Friday generation, challenged the UK government’s line on the 1971 Ballymurphy massacre, confronted homophobia in Catholicism and Islam, investigated the class inequality of the new peace dividend and – perhaps most importantly of all – started on what was set to be her first major work,...
- 11/2/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Festival reveals award winning docs, and the winners of its pitching sessions.
Rodrigo Reyes’s Sansón And Me, the story of an unlikely friendship between two Mexican migrants, has won the best film prize of the the international competition at this year’s Sheffield DocFest.
The DocFest jury lauded Reyes for choosing “to explore a subject matter which is all too often invisible and neglected: the incarceration of immigrants in the US.” The documentary sees Reyes reconnect with Sansón, a Mexican migrant sentenced to life in prison, whom he met when the director was a translator at his trial.
Special...
Rodrigo Reyes’s Sansón And Me, the story of an unlikely friendship between two Mexican migrants, has won the best film prize of the the international competition at this year’s Sheffield DocFest.
The DocFest jury lauded Reyes for choosing “to explore a subject matter which is all too often invisible and neglected: the incarceration of immigrants in the US.” The documentary sees Reyes reconnect with Sansón, a Mexican migrant sentenced to life in prison, whom he met when the director was a translator at his trial.
Special...
- 6/29/2022
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Documentary had UK premiere last night at Sheffield DocFest.
Wildcard Distribution has acquired theatrical rights to documentary Lyra in Ireland and the UK, and Cinephil has signed on for international sales.
The documentary, which had its UK premiere last night (June 26) at Sheffield DocFest, traces the life and death of Northern Irish investigative journalist Lyra McKee.
McKee’s journalism highlighted the consequences of the Troubles, seeking justice for crimes that had been forgotten since the Good Friday Agreement. She was murdered by dissident Republicans in 2019.
Directed by BAFTA-winning Alison Millar, the documentary uses hours of voice recordings from McKee’s mobile,...
Wildcard Distribution has acquired theatrical rights to documentary Lyra in Ireland and the UK, and Cinephil has signed on for international sales.
The documentary, which had its UK premiere last night (June 26) at Sheffield DocFest, traces the life and death of Northern Irish investigative journalist Lyra McKee.
McKee’s journalism highlighted the consequences of the Troubles, seeking justice for crimes that had been forgotten since the Good Friday Agreement. She was murdered by dissident Republicans in 2019.
Directed by BAFTA-winning Alison Millar, the documentary uses hours of voice recordings from McKee’s mobile,...
- 6/27/2022
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
The festival will take place from November 4-13.
The 21st Belfast Film Festival (November 4-13) is to open with the Irish premiere of Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, taking place on November 4 at Icc Belfast, Waterfront Hall.
Belfast is a family drama about a young boy growing up in the late 1960s in Northern Ireland and stars Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds and Jude Hill. It won this year’s Toronto International Film Festival audience award and is produced by Branagh, Laura Berwick, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas, with backing from Northern Ireland Screen.
The film is set...
The 21st Belfast Film Festival (November 4-13) is to open with the Irish premiere of Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, taking place on November 4 at Icc Belfast, Waterfront Hall.
Belfast is a family drama about a young boy growing up in the late 1960s in Northern Ireland and stars Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds and Jude Hill. It won this year’s Toronto International Film Festival audience award and is produced by Branagh, Laura Berwick, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas, with backing from Northern Ireland Screen.
The film is set...
- 10/5/2021
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Northern Ireland Screen has backed seven feature documentaries in the last year.
Northern Ireland’s documentary scene is thriving as the third annual Docs Ireland festival opens in Beflast today, Wednesday, August 25. Features from Northern Irish filmmakers Teresa Lavina and Brendan Byrne are being showcased in a programme that also includes two features in the Irish language.
The festival was created in 2019 as part of the existing Belfast Film Festival. It aims to turn the spotlight on the storytelling output of Irish and international non-fiction filmmakers, as well as leading international documentary filmmakers and also includes industry events and a marketplace.
Northern Ireland’s documentary scene is thriving as the third annual Docs Ireland festival opens in Beflast today, Wednesday, August 25. Features from Northern Irish filmmakers Teresa Lavina and Brendan Byrne are being showcased in a programme that also includes two features in the Irish language.
The festival was created in 2019 as part of the existing Belfast Film Festival. It aims to turn the spotlight on the storytelling output of Irish and international non-fiction filmmakers, as well as leading international documentary filmmakers and also includes industry events and a marketplace.
- 8/25/2021
- by Esther McCarthy
- ScreenDaily
This powerful, elegiac documentary focuses on a monumental chronicle of 3,700 lives ended by violence in Northern Ireland
Few films released in 2019 have seemed as timely or as urgent as Lost Lives. Documentarists Michael Hewitt and Diarmuid Lavery have come up with an immensely powerful film about a remarkable artefact: a thumping chronicle written over seven years that stands as an obituary of 3,700 lives taken during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Hewitt and Lavery pull a scene-setting example from the book’s first pages: nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, killed in his bed by an Ruc bullet during a riot in August 1969. In the film’s final moments, they add the name of Lyra McKee, the journalist shot by dissident Republicans during rioting in April 2019. Entry by entry, the film constructs a sorrowful history of promise extinguished and offers a pointed reminder of what lurks behind any rollback of the Good Friday agreement.
Few films released in 2019 have seemed as timely or as urgent as Lost Lives. Documentarists Michael Hewitt and Diarmuid Lavery have come up with an immensely powerful film about a remarkable artefact: a thumping chronicle written over seven years that stands as an obituary of 3,700 lives taken during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Hewitt and Lavery pull a scene-setting example from the book’s first pages: nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, killed in his bed by an Ruc bullet during a riot in August 1969. In the film’s final moments, they add the name of Lyra McKee, the journalist shot by dissident Republicans during rioting in April 2019. Entry by entry, the film constructs a sorrowful history of promise extinguished and offers a pointed reminder of what lurks behind any rollback of the Good Friday agreement.
- 10/16/2019
- by Mike McCahill
- The Guardian - Film News
Footage from Dermot Lavery and Michael Hewitt’s “Lost Lives” offers a glimpse of some of the victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland, known in Britain and Ireland simply as “the Troubles.”
The nonfiction film has its world premiere at the London Film Festival on Thursday. It has a roster of big-name Irish actors narrating, including Kenneth Branagh, Adrian Dunbar, Brendan Gleeson, Susan Lynch and Liam Neeson.
The film project is based on the book of the same title, which was written over seven years by five journalists. They set out to record the circumstances of every single death in the conflict, which was formally ended by the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, although violence has occasionally flared since. The book has 3,700 entries. The final one is for Lyra McKee, a journalist fatally shot in 2019.
Lavery and Hewitt describe the project not as a documentary but “a filmic response to the book.
The nonfiction film has its world premiere at the London Film Festival on Thursday. It has a roster of big-name Irish actors narrating, including Kenneth Branagh, Adrian Dunbar, Brendan Gleeson, Susan Lynch and Liam Neeson.
The film project is based on the book of the same title, which was written over seven years by five journalists. They set out to record the circumstances of every single death in the conflict, which was formally ended by the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, although violence has occasionally flared since. The book has 3,700 entries. The final one is for Lyra McKee, a journalist fatally shot in 2019.
Lavery and Hewitt describe the project not as a documentary but “a filmic response to the book.
- 10/10/2019
- by Stewart Clarke
- Variety Film + TV
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