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- Sunday World
Irish TikTok sensation dreaming big after penning songs for powerful Troubles doc
Jolene Allison Burns wrote songs for new documentary The Flats about a community impacted by the Troubles
Jolene, who got to sing in the documentary, is now releasing her own album
A young Belfast woman who wrote songs for a powerful new documentary is now pursuing her dream of becoming a singer-songwriter.
Jolene Allison Burns penned songs for a new documentary about a tower block community that was heavily impacted by The Troubles.
The Flats recalls the memories of some of the largely Catholic residents of the city's New Lodge flats and how those events shaped their lives. Encouraged by the huge response to the film here and internationally, Jolene is following a long-held dream to record her own album — and her songs have become a viral sensation on TikTok.
'I got to write the music for the whole show. I got to sing in it,' says the thrilled young mum. 'From then, it's given me opportunities to write a lot of my own songs. I have songs on Spotify and iTunes, 25 different platforms. I'm dropping an album. I'm releasing an album very soon. And I started TikTok,' she says, adding that she was delighted at how her songs have drawn huge interest on the platform.'
The Flats, from Italian filmmaker Alessandra Celesia — who lives in Belfast and France — focuses on a few residents of the New Lodge apartments in North Belfast, as they process their memories of The Troubles and beyond and how those memories shape their lives and communities.
The Flats features chats with residents of the New Lodge
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Jolene speaks movingly about her beloved sister Coleen, left in need of full-time care after damage caused by an incident of drugs use. 'Coleen, out of the whole family, she was the girl that I grew up with. We shared a room together. She was my rock. And she can't walk, she can't talk, she can't eat. She's in a hospital bed. It's horrible.'
Jolene remains concerned about drugs in her native city, but she loves Belfast and its people and wants the best life for her daughter, Holly. Northern Ireland's turbulent history, she feels, has made life more difficult, even in the years after the peace agreement.
'I think that a lot of people just have to carry on with things. A lot of people turn to just being able to cope with things. I have seen a lot of people struggle. But as time has gone on and things have happened over the years, I feel that I do love this place. I will always call this place home, but I still feel that I need to get out, and I feel like a lot of trauma has been left, in families, generations through.'
Jolene, who got to sing in the documentary, is now releasing her own album
News in 90 Seconds - 7th June
Among the songs by Jolene that feature in The Flats is a song she wrote called Just the Way We Are.
'It's basically about living in Belfast, and how everyone has traumas and struggles. Every person goes through pain and suffers in their own way. Some people look at people and think life can be perfect, and influencers and all this can make things look like life's perfect, but everyone has struggles.
'It's just the way we are. You can't change who you are as a person. You just have to be who you are and try to move on. I hope that I can inspire people that there's always light at the end of the tunnel, even when you can't feel it.'
The Flats features chats with residents of the New Lodge
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Encouraged by the reaction to the film and her songs, Jolene recorded more songs on social and online media and her talent has generated interest from TV executives.
"I always wrote my own songs. I started going into recording studios and started just recording them all, put all the music together myself. I was like: 'This is what I want'. And I came up with some really cool songs. I'm excited to drop my album.'
She has travelled to film festivals abroad — including Switzerland and Copenhagen — to talk about the film, which has been widely well received. It also won the George Morrison award for best documentary feature at this year's IFTAs.
It was made by Italian filmmaker Alessandra Celesia, who married a Belfast man and moved to the city in 1997.
'I arrived in the North for the first time just before the Good Friday Agreement and I said I would never make a film about the Troubles,' Alessandra has said.
'It's the past, it's finished, and now we're looking for something else. And I kept my promise until I found New Lodge, where it's just so clear there is this whole generation traumatised by this thing that they never got over. For any war, this is exactly what happens.'
Jolene's great hope is that The Flats will help drive awareness of and support for upcoming generations in Northern Ireland.
'We would love a lot more help for our generation, and for them to be notified and aware of what went on in the past, which is why I think this film is a great thing for people to watch, to be able to know what went on in the past.'
She's also glad that through the seriousness of the subject matter in the film, the warmth, sense of humour and resilience of the people of Belfast frequently shines through.
'I think there is a lot of laughter,' she says of her home city. 'I think we're very kind people — in Ireland, there's a lot of kind people. People are very helpful, and they would stop and talk to you. They would give you a helping hand. If you were to ask someone from the New Lodge: 'Oh I have no milk', they would give you their milk. They would give you their last penny, even if they haven't got much themselves. It's just born in our nature to be kind and funny and there's a lot of humour and a lot of funniness in Northern Ireland.'
