The White Handkerchief

Taal: NL
Categorie: reportage

January 30th 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. As the people of Derry city came together to commemorate the event, a bold new piece of musical theatre was staged in the Guildhall - the intended, but never reached destination for the fateful 1972 Civil Rights march. Commissioned by the city's Playhouse Theatre, The White Handkerchief sought to create a dramatic elegy to the thirteen killed alongside those others injured, and to catalyse a creative legacy from those devastating events. The result is a bold experiment which renders the events of Bloody Sunday on a vivid, new, audio- visual canvas and seeks to inspire a new generation of local talent in musical theatre, offering a bright and unexpected legacy of that day 50 years ago. Filmed over nine months, this intimate portrait takes viewers into the heart of the production and a city striving to come to terms with the defining event of its recent history. The White Handkerchief film follows the Playhouse's Kieran Griffiths on a seemingly impossible mission - to establish a musical theatre company drawn from the local community, and instil in them the skills and confidence to perform a world-class piece of musical theatre that deals with one of the most traumatising events in the lived memory of their city. Seen through the eyes of the crew and cast of the play, and members of the Bloody Sunday families themselves, this film takes viewers inside the reality not just of a hugely ambitious theatre production, but also some of the bigger questions of how Northern Ireland is addressing not just its past, but also its future. Produced & Directed by Vinny Cunningham & John Peto