The British premiere of one of the nation’s most moving human rights stories is to be showcased in Scotland.
Part of the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, ‘Bloody Sunday: A Derry Diary,’ provides eye witness accounts and testimonies from the families of those killed in the 1972 tragedy, where 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by the British Army when marching for civil rights in Derry, Northern Ireland.
Whilst focusing on the day and the Saville Inquiry, a 12-year investigation into the Bloody Sunday killings, the film – by Margo Harkin – also paints a picture of the fateful day, and the families’ relationship with campaigners.
The festival will be opened by one of the Saville Inquiry’s early organisers, civil rights campaigner and film participant, Eamonn McCann, in Glasgow.
Said McCann, in a statement issued by the festival organisers: “The Derry people didn’t want to be told the truth: they wanted the truth to be told.”
He added: “At every step in the making of the film, I felt myself tugged back to the terror of Rossville Street on the day of the killings, of craning my head from the gutter to see people I knew crumpling onto the rubble of a barricade. It’s been an intimate experience throughout.
“An experience like Bloody Sunday hooks your own heart to the affairs of the wide world. Margo Harkin's film is just a record of that happening.”
The International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival is taking place from the 26th to the 31st of this month at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA).
Added: Paula Larkin, co-ordinator of Document 8, shorthand for the festival, which is now in its eighth year. “We are very excited to welcome Eamonn to this year’s the festival and to be screening this insightful and powerful film. Bloody Sunday represents one of the most significant human rights abuses in British history and this film provides a new perspective on the debate.
“We feel that communities in Scotland and across the world can learn from this campaign as they can from many of the stories featuring in what we feel is Document’s strongest programme yet.”
Bloody Sunday: A Derry Diary will be screened a week on Saturday at 6.15pm at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts.
Eamonn McCann is also speaking at a pre-festival event, on Friday, at the Glasgow Film Theatre at 11am.
For more information, click www.documentfilmfestival.org
