From 1pm.

The documentary drama Violet Gibson, the Irish Woman Who Shot Mussolini (2020) is showing.

Colin Murphy writes:

Violet Gibson was the Irish woman who shot Mussolini. Had he not moved his head at the last moment, ensuring the bullet merely pierced his nose, history could have been very different.

My film about Violet is showing this Sunday online From 1pm, via the Kerry International Film Festival: )

Gibson was born in Dalkey, daughter of the Lord Chancellor to Ireland, and grew up as part of the “high society” of the day. Rejecting that, she went to Italy in 1924 and hatched a plan to assassinate Mussolini.

She approached him at a rally, got right up to him, drew her gun and shot. After the attempt failed, she was set upon by the fascist mob, but was saved by police. The fascist authorities didn’t want the publicity of a public trial, so she was deported to England.

But neither the British authorities nor her own family wanted anything to do with her. She spent the rest of her life incarcerated in Northampton Mental Hospital in England, largely forgotten, dying in 1956.

As with many women perceived as difficult or dangerous, the response was to silence her. She was effectively written out of history. This is the first film about her. It stars Olwen Fouéré  as Violet.

Violet Gibson: The Irish Woman Who Shot Mussolini  (Kerry International Film Festival)