Oscar-winning director to produce Loughinisland film

Oscar-winning director to produce Loughinisland film

3 August 2016

THE Loughinisland massacre is to be the subject of a new documentary by an Oscar-winning film-maker.

Alex Gibney’s feature-length film will be released by the BBC and Amazon. It follows ’Ceasefire Massacre’, a short film he made about the Heights Bar murders for sports channel ESPN in 2014.

Six men were killed and five injured by the UVF as they watched the Republic of Ireland play Italy in the World Cup at the Heights Bar on June 18, 1994.

In his report into the murders, released last month, Police Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire concluded there was police collusion, pointing to many examples of failures to pass on intelligence to investigators.

Alex Gibney is well-known for his high profile investigative work. Highlights from his career include We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (2013), a portrait of Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and the government’s struggle for secrecy, as well as a 2008 film about the Bush administration’s policy on torture and interrogation called Taxi to the Dark Side.

In 2013, Gibney took home three Emmy Awards for Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, a harrowing story of sex abuse in the Catholic church.

The American director was first made aware of the Loughinisland murders by Trevor Birney, a Northern Irish producer who worked on Mea Maxima Culpa. Mr Gibney told ESPN that, with his Irish ancestry, he was drawn to the families’ search for justice. He said he saw poignancy in the timing of the murders with the embryonic peace process gathering momentum.

“Despite the discovery of eyewitnesses, the recovery of the getaway car, the guns, balaclavas, fingerprints and DNA, why was no one charged, never mind convicted?” asked Gibney.

“Why was key evidence destroyed by local police? It turns out that the assault rifles were from Czechoslovakia, shipped to South Africa and brought into Northern Ireland with the aid of British intelligence.”