An Interview with: Roisin Agnew, Director of the Documentary The Ban
Date Posted: November 15, 2024
Roisin Agnew is the director of the short documentary The Ban, which examines a key period during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The film explores the British government’s ban that prevented Sinn Féin representatives from speaking on TV and radio. The Ban combines archival footage with voiceovers, featuring contributions from actor Stephen Rea, who was involved in the re-dubbing of voices during the ban, and Gerry Adams.
In advance of upcoming screenings at IDFA 2024 and the Foyle Film Festival 2024, director Roisin Agnew has shared her thoughts and experiences behind the project, including on her work with the Northern Ireland Screen Digital Film Archive.
To start, could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about The Ban? How would you describe this project and your role in bringing it to life?
‘I’m an Irish Italian filmmaker based in London where I’m a PhD student at Goldsmiths’ Centre for Research Architecture and an associate lecturer at London Film School. In terms of my professional background I used to work in journalism and then moved into screenwriting and have worked on other people’s projects as an assistant producer or writer, including working as a games writer fo Playstation. In terms of my own background I’ve got crossborder heritage if you want, my mother is from Dublin and my father is from outside Derry, but I was born and raised in Rome. I’m director and co-producer on the film, which is edited and produced by Sam Howard at Erica Starling Productions, so my role involved securing funding, securing a commission, generally hoodwinking everyone into making it, researching and assembling the archive with Sam and having final cut.’
The Ban addresses censorship during the conflict in Northern Ireland. What drew you to this subject, and how did you approach telling such a sensitive story?
‘I was initially researching another film connected to the Workshop Movement and its presence in the North via Derry Film and Video Workshop, which was related to my own research at that time, however I’d become familiar with the history of Thatcher’s broadcasting ban and was aware that 2024 marked 30 years since the lifting of the ban and the IRA ceasefire that led to the peace process.
It just made sense to make a film about it, as it was both absurd and inherently cinematic – a cottage industry of Northern Irish actors dubbing members of Sinn Fein and the IRA. Our approach towards the sensitivity of the subject matter was simply to narrow the perspective as much as possible and not try to be objective, it’s an impossibility anyway. We focused on the perspective of those involved directly in the technical process of dubbing – the journalists, broadcasters, actors, and political figures being dubbed. We wanted a lightness of touch despite the tragic and serious stories that this process was entangled with during the period we focus on (1988 – 1994), but we tried to do this with sensitivity.
We also ensured that we consulted with survivors and family members, so we showed the film to Wave Trauma Centre before ever screening it or calling final cut.’
This film features both archival footage with the support of the Northern Ireland Screen Digital Archive and new interviews. Can you tell us about your experience working with this material?
‘Working with the archive was a real privilege and immensely fun. I’d originally contacted NISDFA because I wanted to see Acceptable Levels, a film made under the Workshop Declaration set in Belfast in 1987 (I think!) that dramatised a British film crew and their (mis)reporting of the conflict. It wasn’t available online. I’d decided I wanted to make a film about the ban and was researching it, and I met Francis Jones form Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive during this visit and decided to pitch the film to him as a commission, and thankfully he went for it. We then worked with Evan Marshall and Stephen Newe, two archivists at Northern Ireland Screen Digital Film Archive. Sam and I would be aware of an exact piece of footage that was needed and ask for it or we would describe dates and events we needed to depict, and we made it piecemeal like that, with things even being digitised for us at times. I’m immensely grateful to them, it was a real education working with them.’
What are your goals for the impact of your work in the modern world?
‘The Ban is a product of the disinformation age and came out of a desire to create a timeline that traced the prehistory of these tactics specifically in relation to Britain’s relationship to the North and its place as site of experimentation for different forms of policing and counterinsurgency. But it’s also a film that was made against the backdrop of the still-unfolding genocide in Gaza. Over the past year there’s been a growing public awareness of the media’s capacity to manipulate language, reported speech, and real events in service of a political narrative and how this has real, material implications.
Media’s complicity with various states has paved the way to the genocide we see unfold on our phone screens everyday and I sincerely hope the media’s part in this is eventually held up to scrutiny. The Ban’s is set at a marked spatial temporal distance from this, but deals with the idea of the media as a front along which a conflict is fought; how it was used to create a lacuna in the British public imaginary when it came to the North, which in itself dehumanised its subjects and prolonged the conflict. Looking at a historical event with shared similarities has the capacity to give a new perspective somewhat stripped of emotion, I think.’
Lastly, where can audiences watch The Ban, and are there any upcoming screenings or platforms where it will be available?
‘IDFA International Premiere is Saturday 16th at 13.00 at Eye Cinema, screening alongside Eye of Gaza and for other dates thereafter.
Foyle Film Festival Derry November 29th at 7pm with a panel discussion with Roisin Agnew, actor Stephen Rea, and Anne Crilly, member of Derry Film and Video Workshop and director of Mother Ireland.
BerthaDocHouse on December 7th at 18:00 with Trevory Birney, producer of Kneecap, and Peter Taylor, director of Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival.’
https://foylefilmfestival.org/whats-on/the-ban-archive-screening
https://dochouse.org/event/the-ban/
https://festival.idfa.nl/en/film/2fe91800-c034-4c7c-8acf-83b51e4c15b9/the-ban/
