Bloody Sunday | |
---|---|
Directed by | Paul Greengrass |
Screenplay by | Paul Greengrass |
Based on | Eyewitness Bloody Sunday by Don Mullan |
Produced by |
|
Starring |
|
Cinematography | Ivan Strasburg |
Edited by | Clare Douglas |
Music by | Dominic Muldowney |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Feature Film Company |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 111 minutes |
Countries |
|
Language | English |
Budget | £2,000,000 |
Box office | £482,117 |
Bloody Sunday is a 2002 film written and directed by Paul Greengrass based around the 1972 "Bloody Sunday" shootings in Derry, Northern Ireland. Although produced by Granada Television as a TV film, it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 16 January, a few days before its screening on ITV on 20 January, and then in selected London cinemas from 25 January.
Bloody Sunday is an international co-production of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Though set in Derry, the film was mostly shot in Ballymun in North Dublin, with some location scenes were shot in Derry, in Guildhall Square and in Creggan on the actual route of the march in 1972.
The film was inspired by Don Mullan's politically influential book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday (Wolfhound Press, 1997). The drama shows the events of the day through the eyes of Ivan Cooper, an SDLP Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland who was a central organiser of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march in Derry on 30 January 1972. The march ended when British Army paratroopers fired on the demonstrators, killing thirteen and wounding another who died four and a half months later. In addition to the deaths, fourteen other people were wounded.
A live version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2 plays over the closing credits.
Cooper is played by James Nesbitt, himself a Protestant from Northern Ireland. In recognition of the role his book played in achieving the new Bloody Sunday Inquiry, his book's role as inspiration for the movie, and the fact that he was a schoolboy witness to the tragedy, Don Mullan was asked by director Paul Greengrass to appear in the film as a Bogside Priest. A number of the military characters were played by ex-members of the British Army, including Simon Mann. Gerry Donaghy was played by Declan Duddy, nephew of Jackie Duddy, one of those killed on Bloody Sunday. Big Brother 2007 housemate Seány O'Kane was also in the film. [1]
The film was critically acclaimed. [2] It won the Audience Award at Sundance and the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival (tied with Spirited Away ), in addition to the Hitchcock d'Or best film prize at the Dinard Festival of British Cinema. [3]
Bloody Sunday appeared a week before Jimmy McGovern's TV film on the same subject, entitled Sunday (shown by Channel 4). McGovern subsequently criticised Greengrass's film for concentrating on the leadership of the march, and not the perspective of those who joined it. [4]
It holds a 92% approval rating on aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 102 collected reviews, with an average score of 7.9/10. The site's consensus reads: "Bloody Sunday powerfully recreates the events of that day with startling immediacy." [5] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 90 out of 100 based on 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [6]
Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2002 | Berlin International Film Festival | Golden Bear | Paul Greengrass | Won | [7] |
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury | Won | ||||
British Independent Film Awards | Best British Independent Film | Bloody Sunday | Nominated | [8] | |
Best Director | Paul Greengrass | Nominated | |||
Best Actor | James Nesbitt | Won | |||
Best Screenplay | Paul Greengrass | Nominated | |||
Best Technical Achievement | Ivan Strasburg | Nominated | |||
European Film Awards | Best Film | Bloody Sunday | Nominated | [9] | |
EFA People's Choice Award - Best Director | Paul Greengrass | Nominated | |||
Best Screenwriter | Nominated | ||||
Best Cinematographer | Ivan Strasburg | Nominated | |||
Independent Spirit Awards | Best International Film | Bloody Sunday | Nominated | [10] | |
IFTA Film & Drama Awards | Best Feature Film | Won | [11] | ||
Best Director – Film | Paul Greengrass | Won | |||
Best Actor – Film | James Nesbitt | Nominated | |||
Best Actress – Film | Kathy Kiera Clarke | Nominated | |||
Best Script | Paul Greengrass | Won | |||
Best Photography | Ivan Strasburg | Nominated | |||
Best Editing | Clare Douglas | Nominated | |||
Best Sound | Albert Bailey | Won | |||
Sundance Film Festival | World Cinema Audience Award | Bloody Sunday | Won | [12] | |
2003 | British Academy Television Awards | Best Single Drama | Mark Redhead, Paul Greengrass | Nominated | [13] |
Best Actor | James Nesbitt | Nominated | |||
British Academy Television Craft Awards | Best Editing: Fiction/Entertainment | Clare Douglas | Nominated | ||
Best Photography and Lighting: Fiction | Ivan Strasburg | Won | |||
Best Sound: Entertainment | Sound Team | Nominated | |||
Royal Television Society Programme Awards | Serials and Single Drama | Bloody Sunday | Nominated | [14] | |
Writing | Paul Greengrass | Nominated | |||
Bloody Sunday, or the Bogside Massacre, was a massacre on 30 January 1972 when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland. Thirteen men were killed outright and the death of another man four months later was attributed to gunshot injuries from the incident. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers, and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by shrapnel, rubber bullets, or batons; two were run down by British Army vehicles; and some were beaten. All of those shot were Catholics. The march had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) to protest against internment without trial. The soldiers were from the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, the same battalion implicated in the Ballymurphy massacre several months before.
Omagh is a 2004 Irish film dramatising the events surrounding the Omagh bombing and its aftermath, co-produced by Irish state broadcaster RTÉ and UK network Channel 4, and directed by Pete Travis. It was first shown on television in both countries in May, 2004.
Paul Greengrass is an English film director, film producer, screenwriter and former journalist.
William James Nesbitt is an actor from Northern Ireland. From 1987, Nesbitt spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical Up on the Roof to the political drama Paddywack (1994). He made his feature film debut playing talent agent Fintan O'Donnell in Hear My Song (1991). He got his breakthrough television role playing Adam Williams in the romantic comedy-drama series Cold Feet, which won him a British Comedy Award, a Television and Radio Industries Club Award, and a National Television Award.
Ivan Averill Cooper was a nationalist politician from Northern Ireland. He was a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). He is best known for leading the civil rights march on 30 January 1972 that developed into the Bloody Sunday massacre.
Eamonn McCann is an Irish political activist, former politician and journalist from Derry, Northern Ireland. McCann was a People Before Profit (PBP) Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Foyle from 2016 to 2017. In 2019, he was elected to Derry City and Strabane District Council, remaining in the position until his resignation for health reasons in March 2021.
Peter Mullan is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. His credits include Riff-Raff (1991), Shallow Grave (1994), Braveheart (1995), Trainspotting (1996), My Name Is Joe (1998), The Claim (2000), Neds (2010), War Horse (2011), The Fixer (2008), Top of the Lake (2013), Mum (2016-2019), Ozark (2017-2018), Westworld (2018-2020), Cursed (2020), The North Water (2021), The Underground Railroad (2022), The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022–2024), After the Party (2023), and Baghead (2023).
Edward Kevin Daly was an Irish Roman Catholic priest and author. He served as the Bishop of Derry from 1974 to 1993. Daly took part in several civil rights marches and events during the Troubles. He came to wider attention during Bloody Sunday in January 1972, waving a blood-stained white handkerchief as he escorted a group carrying a mortally wounded protester after British troops opened fire on demonstrators.
Don Mullan is an Irish author and media producer. His book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday is officially recognised as a primary catalyst for a new Bloody Sunday inquiry, which became the longest-running and most expensive in British legal history. Mullan, who is dyslexic, has spoken widely and was co-producer of a highly acclaimed and multi-award-winning film about Bloody Sunday that was inspired by his book.
Sunday is a television drama, produced by Sunday Productions for Channel 4 and screened on 25 January 2002. It dramatises the events of "Bloody Sunday" through the eyes of the families of the dead and injured, specifically those of Leo Young, older brother of John Young, who was killed on the day. The timescale covers events in the years prior to Bloody Sunday, and subsequent events up to and including the Widgery Tribunal.
Khalid Abdalla is a British actor and activist. He came to international prominence after starring in the 2006 Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning film United 93. Written and directed by Paul Greengrass, it chronicles events aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked as part of the 11 September attacks. Abdalla played Ziad Jarrah, the pilot and leader of the four hijackers on board the flight.
Gary Stevenson, better known as Gary Lewis, is a Scottish actor. He has had roles in films such as Billy Elliot (2000), Gangs of New York (2002), Joyeux Noël (2005) and Eragon (2006), as well as major roles in the television docudrama Supervolcano, the Starz series Outlander, and the BBC One thriller Vigil.
Liam Hinphey ;(born 15 August 1984) was a dual player of Gaelic games who played Gaelic football and hurling for the Derry GAA, with whom he has won the National Football League title and Nicky Rackard Cup (hurling).
Brendan Duddy was a businessman from Derry, Northern Ireland, who played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process. A notable Catholic republican, who was a pacifist and firm believer in dialogue, Duddy became known by MI6 as "The Contact". In his book, Great Hatred; Little Room – Making Peace in Northern Ireland, Tony Blair's political advisor Jonathan Powell described Duddy as the "key" which led to discussions between republicans and MI6, and ultimately the Northern Ireland peace process.
Elizabeth Clare Douglas was a British film editor who received a BAFTA Award for Best Editing for the 2006 film United 93. Douglas worked extensively for British television, and had been nominated four times for BAFTA Television Editing Awards.
James Nesbitt is an actor from Northern Ireland whose filmography encompasses both television and film roles over a 30-year period. Nesbitt's screen career began in the early 1980s with uncredited roles in episodes of the BBC Play For Today strand, which he had while attached to the Riverside Theatre's youth group. His first credited role came in 1989, as a bit player in the John Ogdon biopic Virtuoso, which was followed by his first feature film role in 1991 in Hear My Song.
Five Minutes of Heaven is a 2009 film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a script by Guy Hibbert. The film premiered on 19 January 2009 at the 25th Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award for Hirschbiegel, and the World Cinema Screenwriting Award for Hibbert. As a television film it was broadcast on BBC Two on 5 April 2009, and also had an international feature film release.
Margo Harkin is an Irish filmmaker. Best known for the drama Hush-a-Bye Baby and the documentary Bloody Sunday: A Derry Diary, Harkin produced the surfing documentary Waveriders in 2008.
Raymond McClean was an Irish nationalist politician and physician from Northern Ireland.
John Francis Duddy is an Irish actor and former professional boxer who fought from 2003 to 2010. He challenged once for the vacant WBC Silver middleweight title, losing in his final fight to Julio César Chávez Jr.