EU peace funderat Troubles film

The film is based on the powerful Theatre of Witness production, of the same name, performed by six remarkable men earlier this year.

Speaking after the screening Pat Colgan, Chief Executive Pat of the Special European Union Programmes Body (SEUPB) said it was important to continue to support projects that attempted to deal with the past over the course of the forthcoming Peace IV.

This, however, will be in spite of a likely huge drop in the amount of peace money pouring into Northern Ireland in future.

‘Release’ is the culmination of Teya Sepinuck’s latest Theatre of Witness project.

It follows the cathartic theatrical journey of Kevin Kelly (a former CID detective who investigated Ballykelly, Teebane, Coshquin and lost his friend and mentor David Reeves when the IRA booby-trapped a TV in a Shantallow garage on June 11, 1982); Sydney Trotter (a former UDA bagman whose former headmaster Ronnie Hill was killed in the Enniskillen bombng); Adrian Duplock (a former solider who was tasked to the scene of Enniskillen on his first tour with the Royal Signals); William McKee (a Governor at HMP Maghaberry, who came under death threat after LVF Billy Wright was murdered in the jail in 1997); Paddy McCooey (a community worker who was caught up in a carbomb in the New Lodge when just eight years old); and Vinnie Coyle (an ex-prisoner whose nephew Kieran Doherty was recently murdered by the Real IRA).

The film will be screened at 7pm in the Brian Friel Theatre, Belfast, on Thursday (September 12).