Latest news with #Re-Creation
RTÉ News
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
World premiere for Gerry Adams documentary at Galway Film Fleadh
The documentary Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man will receive its world premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July, it has been announced. The Trisha Ziff-directed film is billed as "the first time Gerry Adams sits down to tell his story from teenage activist to party leader". It will screen at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway on Saturday 12 July at 4pm. The festival will open on Tuesday 8 July with Re-Creation from co-directors Jim Sheridan and David Merriman. In Re-Creation 's fictitious Irish trial, a jury must decide whether the British journalist Ian Bailey, who died in January 2024, is guilty of the murder of the French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork in December 1996. Ian Bailey was arrested twice by gardaí investigating Ms Toscan du Plantier's death. However, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided no charge was to be brought against him in relation to her murder. He was convicted in his absence of the murder by a French court in 2020 and a 25-year sentence was imposed on him. However, the High Court in Ireland ruled that he should not be extradited to France to face that jail term. Ian Bailey protested his innocence until his death in Cork in January 2024. The cast of Re-Creation includes Vicky Krieps, Jim Sheridan, Aidan Gillen, Colm Meaney, and Brendan Conroy. The Galway Film Fleadh will close on Sunday 13 July with The Life of Chuck, writer-director Mike Flanagan's adaptation of the Stephen King science fiction novella of the same name. The film stars Tom Hiddleston in the title role alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Mark Hamill. The Life of Chuck opens in Irish cinemas on Friday 22 August. Galway Film Fleadh Director of Programming Maeve McGrath said: "The Fleadh is opening strong in 2025 with the Irish premiere of Re-Creation, fresh from its world premiere at Tribeca [Film Festival in New York]. "We are delighted to have a big year of Irish films at the Fleadh this year with over 42 Irish films screening, with the Fleadh providing a platform for Irish film year on year. "Documentary filmmakers play a pivotal role in bringing stories of the world to the screen and in Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man director Trisha Ziff brings Gerry's story to the screen from his youth to the present day. "We are thrilled to be closing the Fleadh with The Life of Chuck, a stunning film that won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). [It's] A film with strong characters that will make the audience reflect on their own relationships. A must-see at the Fleadh in July." Watch: The trailer for The Life of Chuck
Irish Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Jim Sheridan's fictionalised film about Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder to premiere in New York
Six-time Oscar nominee Jim Sheridan 's fictionalised film about the unsolved 1996 murder of French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier is to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in June. Sheridan and his co-writer and codirector, David Merriman, have spent the past 2 ½ years working on 'Re-Creation', which looks at the murder of 39-year-old Mrs Toscan du Plantier, a mother of one, at her remote holiday cottage near Toormore, west Cork, in December 1996. The 90-minute docudrama looks at the murder through the prism of a courtroom drama and imagines a jury's deliberations if the main suspect in the case, the late English journalist Ian Bailey , had been tried in Ireland for Mrs Toscan du Plantier's killing. Mr Bailey, who died in January last year aged 66, was twice arrested by gardaí for questioning about the murder, but was never charged. He was convicted in France in absentia of the voluntary homicide of Mrs Toscan du Plantier and sentenced to 25 years in jail. He remained in Ireland and vehemently protested his innocence. READ MORE The film features Commitments and Star Trek actor Colm Meaney as Ian Bailey, while Game of Thrones and Love/Hate star Aidan Gillen plays a lawyer. Sheridan plays the jury foreman and Luxembourgish-German actor and Cannes winner Vicky Krieps plays a juror. Sheridan said he was inspired by Sidney Lumet's classic 1957 courtroom drama 12 Angry Men starring Henry Fonda. He told Variety that Krieps plays jury member number eight, 'which is a kind of proxy for Sophie, a kind of voice for her in the film'. Sophie Toscan du Plantier, whose case has rarely been out of the headlines since her murder in December 1996. Photograph: Family Handout/PA He said that after finishing his five-part documentary series for Sky on the killing, called Murder in the Cottage, he felt he was finished with the story. However, he met his codirector and his passion for finding out the truth motivated him to get involved. 'Having done In the Name of the Father, a move which castigated the British legal system over its treatment of an innocent Irish man, I thought I should do a movie which castigated the Irish legal system with whom I believe to be an innocent Englishman,' he told Variety magazine. 'The big crime, the disgusting crime, if he didn't do it, is the police still convincing the French family that Bailey did it – that's inconceivable evil to me, abusing the grief of people and saying, 'No, no we solved it'.' Manchester-born Ian Bailey, who lived in Schull, was twice arrested by gardaí, but was never charged. He always protested his innocence. Photograph: Collins Courts Some external shots were filmed in west Cork, but much of the interior scenes were filmed in Dublin. Mr Sheridan told Variety that while they did use a screenplay as a guide, the film also involved a degree of improvisation. 'True crime is about facts … well, the legal world is supposed to be about facts and evidence, and it's not supposed to be about emotion. It's supposed to reduce emotion out of the argument, so people can decide in a kind of abstract way what the truth is,' he said. 'That never happens; emotion plays a big part. I usually deal with emotion. The documentary was very constraining for me, so I needed to release myself and find the emotional truth of what I felt, which is this one.' The original murder investigation is the subject of a cold case review, started in 2022, by the Garda Serious Crime Team. The unit has reinterviewed most of the surviving witnesses from the original investigation, as well as new witnesses.
