'We just wanted to tell our stories and learned the skills as we went along...' Filmmaker Anne Crilly, a member of the Derry Film and Video Workshop introduces We realised the power of it, a new exhibition at IMMA (the Irish Museum of Modern Art) exploring the history and archive of the radical film collective.
December gone by, forty years ago, I travelled to the Channel Four offices with the late Tommy Collins, photographer Trisha Ziff and Film Educator Jamie Dunbar. We were meeting with Alan Fountain, Independent Commissioning Editor to propose that our ad hoc group be considered for a Channel 4 Workshop Franchise. Dressed to impress, Tommy wore a suit and tie and I sported a skirt and heels. Alan was wearing jeans and red DMs. I felt such a 'country hick!'
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I was hosted by Faction Films in London - a collective of radical filmmakers. It was a wonderful introduction to an exciting world of film-making and communal living. Fresh from my MA in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD, I proposed a documentary project, Mother Ireland, which would explore the history and development of that image as a nationalist icon. Three years of development funding later, we were finally awarded a C4 Workshop Franchise to make the documentary. Funding came then for Margo Harkin to co-write (with Stephanie English) and direct her film Hush-A-Bye Baby film. The Workshop wound down in 1990.
on display as part of 'We realised the power of it' at IMMA
The scene had been set at that early stage for a feminist-centred practice and we were greatly influenced by the UNESCO Report ‘Many Voices, One World’ (convened by Sean McBride) which advocated for the rights of communities to tell their own stories and have access to the means of production. The drive was to tell cultural stories important to us that would be different from often sensationalist news coverage.
The IMMA exhibition, We realised the power of it, is co-curated by Sara Greavu and Ciara Phillips. It draws from Margo’s Derry Film and Video Archive and features my early video work and well as unseen DFV archive footage. Sara and Ciara have highlighted the organic and experimental methodologies of DFV. We just wanted to tell our stories and learned the skills as we went along.
The workshop also included Geraldine McGuinness, Brendan McMenamin, Stephanie English and Jim Curran. Jamie Dunbar trained us in video production skills and as part of the training, I made a documentary on strip searching in Armagh Gaol.
Mother Ireland was filmed entirely within the broadcasting guidelines at the time and being based in the Bogside, we were subject to intense scrutiny from C4. Just after I had finished the edit, one of the participants, recently released prisoner Mairead Farrell was Killed by the SAS on an IRA mission in Gibraltar. C4 panicked – they wanted to show the film with this exclusive footage of Mairead, but there were attacks on the British broadcasting companies by the Thatcher government.
the history of the Derry Film and Video Workshop
There was no reason not to broadcast the documentary until broadcast restriction were introduced by Douglas Hurd on 19th October 1988. According to C4’s legal department, a very strict interpretation would mean that half of the interviewees, archive footage, and songs were excluded.
An edited version of Mother Ireland was eventually screened in C4’s ‘Banned Season’ with Mairead Farrell dubbed by an actress and with some archive footage, photographs and a Christy Moore song, Unfinished Revolution cut. IMMA is screening the original uncensored documentary.
Derry Film and Video was an important intervention in Irish independent production, and I am so proud of its legacy in gathering some stories of Irish women. I’m grateful to IMMA and the curators for offering this insight into a moment in feminist story-telling.
We realised the power of it - Derry Film and Video Workshop continues at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) until 22 September 2024 - find out more here.
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