British Council, in partnership with Anadolu Kultur organizes a special screening of a selection of films in Batman, Diyarbakir, İzmir , Van and Mardin as a part of Separate Voices: Films from the Northern Ireland event.
Northern Ireland is at the crossroads where differences intersect. This defining attribute of the Northern Ireland is also refracted in its artistic production and its cinema has various examples that reflect the social conflicts. Fractured identities have been the subjects to be portrayed in numerous films. Today many media experts believe that without considering their relations with the Troubles, the majority of the cultural products of the Northern Ireland cannot be analysed and discussed. Even if it is not the direct subject of the films, ignoring the traces of the conflicts and the social restrictions that the characters bear is almost impossible. On the other hand, what should be considered is that ironically, the improvement of the Northern Ireland’s national cinema bases more on shared experiences than divisions.
project aims creating a discussion platform through films that focus on the religious, ethnic or gender conflicts that define the societies’ infrastructures and relations with each other and film’s power in reaching wide audiences. Separate Voices: films from the Northern Ireland is organised by the British Council in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Ukraine to enforce intercultural dialogue through art, and is realized in Turkey in partnership of Anadolu Kultur.
Venue
Sinemardin Sinema Salonu
Saturday, May 29
13:00 The Wind that Shakes the Barley
16:00 Hunger
Sunday, May 30
13:00 Bloody Sunday
16:00 Five Minutes of Heaven
18:00 Panel
Hüseyin Kuzu, Script Writer
Venue
Eğitim Sen
Cumhuriyet cad.Mavi Plaza İş Merkezi Kat:3 Van
Saturday, May 8
13:00 Bloody Sunday
15:00 Panel
Hüseyin Karabey, Director
Sunday, May 9
13:00 Five Minutes of Heaven
15:00 The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Venue
Dokuz Eylul University Rector Building - DESEM
Cumhuriyet Bulvarı No: 144 Alsancak İzmir
Thursday, April 1
11:00 Hunger (DESEM 75. Yıl Amfisi Sinema Salonu)
13:00 Bloody Sunday (DESEM Bordo Salon)
15:00 Panel (DESEM Bordo Salon)
Prof. Dr. Ertan Yılmaz, D.E U. Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Film Design
Friday, April 2
11:00 The Wind that Shakes the Barley (DESEM Bordo Salon)
14:00 Five Minutes of Heaven (DESEM Bordo Salon)
16:00 Panel (DESEM Bordo Salon)
Hüseyin Karabey, Director
Venue
Yilmaz Guney Cinema Theatre
Kultur Mah. 2612 Sokak, Ipekyuz Apt. No:10 Kat 1/3
Friday, March 12
18.00 Bloody Sunday
20.00 The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Saturday, March 13
17.45 Five Minutes of Heaven
19.30 Panel
Don Mullan Co-producer of Bloody Sunday and associate producer of Five Minutes of Heaven
John Hill Professor of Media and Head of Research at Royal Holloway, University of London
Kemal Yildizan Member of Diyarbakir Cinema Club and Director of Avrupa Cinema Theater in Diyarbakir
21.00 Hunger
Venue
Diyarbakir Art Centre
Diyar Galeria Bussiness Centre Elazig Cad No 9
Dagkapi / Diyarbakir
www.diyarbakirsanat.org
Saturday, March 13
13.00 Five Minutes of Heaven
15.00 The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Sunday, March 14
16.00 Bloody Sunday
18.00 Panel
Don Mullan Co-producer of Bloody Sunday and associate producer of Five Minutes of Heaven
John Hill Professor of Media and Head of Research at Royal Holloway, University of London
Kemal Yildizan Member of Diyarbakir Cinema Club and Director of Avrupa Cinema Theater in Diyarbakir
Don Mullan (born 1956) is an Irish humanitarian worker and media producer. He has authored and edited several books and documentaries and acted as co-producer and associate producer in three award-winning movies Bloody Sunday, Omagh and Five Minutes of Heaven. Mullan was Director of AFrI (Action from Ireland) 1979-93 during which he and colleagues developed the Great Famine Project. He was one of the first in the Irish world to recognize the approaching 150th anniversary of The Great Famine (The Great Hunger) as "a unique historical moment". As a public speaker Mullan has addressed audiences on justice, peace and human rights issues. He has received Honorary Degrees from Iona College, New Rochelle, New York (1997) and Mount Aloysius College, Cresson, Pennsylvania (2001). Mullan received A Defender of Human Dignity Award from the International League for Human Rights at the United Nations, New York.
John Hill is Professor of Media and Head of Research at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was formerly Professor of Media Studies and Head of the School of Media and Performing Arts at the University of Ulster. He is the author or co-editor of a number of books, including Sex, Class and Realism: British Cinema 1956-63 (1986); Cinema and Ireland (1987); The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (1998); British Cinema in the 1980s (1999)and Cinema and Northern Ireland: Film, Culture and Politics (2006). He was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the UK Film Council and a Governor of the British Film Institute. He is also a former Chair of the Northern Ireland Film Council, the founding Chair of the Foyle Film Festival (in Derry) and a former member of the Board of the Irish Film Theatre (in Dublin).
Kemal Yildizhan is a Member of Diyarbakir Cinema Club and Director of Avrupa Cinema theater in Diyarbakir.
Bloody Sunday
UK-Ireland, 2002
DVD / Colour / 107'
English; Turkish s.t.
Director / Writer Paul Greengrass
Starring James Nesbitt, Tim Pigott-Smith
Bloody Sunday is a war film about the struggle for peace.
On 30th January 1972, British soldiers shot dead 13 unarmed civilians taking part in an anti-internment civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland. This event, Bloody Sunday, was a major turning point in the history of the modern Irish troubles, catapulting the conflict into a civil war, driving many young men into the ranks of the IRA and fuelling a 25-year cycle of violence. In its extremely focused time-frame but epic scale, the film is an emotional roller-coaster showing the events that lead up to this tragic incident when a protest march led by civil rights activist Ivan Cooper was fired upon by British troops.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
UK-Ireland-Germany-Italy-Spain-France, 2006
DVD / Colour / 127'
English-Irish Gaelic; Turkish s.t.
Director Ken Loach
Writer Paul Laverty
Starring Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney
Set in Ireland in 1920, workers from field and country unite to form volunteer guerrilla armies to face the ruthless "Black and Tan" squads that are being shipped from Britain to block Ireland's bid for independence. Driven by a sense of duty and love for his country, Damien abandons his career as a doctor and joins his Republican brother, Teddy, to fight. The opposing sides finally agree to a treaty but then civil war erupts and families find themselves pitted against one another as sworn enemies, putting their loyalties to the test.
The film is a powerful drama with relevant things to say about the legacy of divide-and-conquer imperialist rule and what happens when the occupying force withdraws; the conflict portrayed is ugly, brutal and internecine. Much of the violence is perpetrated by the brothers at the centre of the drama, highlighting the tragedy of a conflict that turns heroes into killers and oppressors into victims.
Five Minutes of Heaven
UK-Ireland, 2009
DVD / Colour / 89'
English; Turkish s.t.
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel
Writer Guy Hibbert
Starring Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt
This award-winning film by Olivier Hirschbiegel, the director of The Experiment, Downfall and The Invasion, is a masterfully conceived drama based on real events that explores Northern Ireland's troubled past, and the challenges the future holds in coming to terms with one's own past. The story begins in 1975 when 17-year-old Alistair Little, a member of the unionist Ulster Volunteer Force, murdered a 19-year-old Catholic, Jim Griffin. He was arrested two weeks later, and convicted. Jim's murder was witnessed by his 11-year-old brother, Joe Griffin. 33 years after the murder, we imagine what might have happened if the murderer, Alistair, and the brother of the victim, Joe, had met.
Hunger
UK-Ireland, 2008
35mm / Colour / 96'
English; Turkish s.t.
Director / Writer Steve McQueen
Starring Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham
Hunger follows life in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland with an interpretation of the highly emotive events surrounding the 1981 IRA Hunger Strike, led by Bobby Sands. With an epic eye for detail, the film provides a timely exploration of what happens when body and mind are pushed to the uttermost limit.
“In the end we are alone with one man, living out his last days in the most extreme manner possible – but only one decision away from choosing to surrender and live. The simplest physical action becomes an odyssey”. Steve McQueen
* The title of the project is taken from Damien Quinn’s poem "Voices"
For further information you can email arts.info@britishcouncil.org.tr
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