Tag Archives: A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot

A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot.

By Irish documentary maker and journalist Sinead O’Shea.

In The Guardian, Ms O’Shea writes:

Punishment shootings facilitated by family members is a phenomenon with which I, as a documentary film-maker, am very familiar. In 2012 I began talking to the O’Donnell family in Derry. Earlier that year Majella O’Donnell had taken her teenage son, Philly, to be shot by local gunmen.

Majella, her son and his shooters are all part of a community that considers itself to be still at war. They are Republican dissidents and do not feel represented by the Republicans who signed up to the Good Friday agreement on their behalf.

I have made films all over the world but on my doorstep found a story that was more compelling than anything I’d ever previously encountered.

 

…The resulting film, A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot, will receive its international premiere this weekend in Copenhagen, at CPH:DOX, one of the most prestigious documentary festivals in the world, where it has been nominated for an award. The Oscar-winning director Joshua Oppenheimer is now executive producer.

The international interest is in disappointing contrast with the UK. The documentary premiered at the London film festival last year but as yet, no UK broadcaster has committed to screening it, despite mounting concerns that Brexit could reawaken old divisions.

I found out what happened when a mother took her son to be kneecapped in Northern Ireland (Sinéad O’Shea, The Irish Times)