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These are films that filmmakers want to make, long to make, have to make. Investigative films are often about events, issues, stories that are iconic in our own lifetime, or important within our own personal experience or personal history. Yet these are also precisely the films that reveal what has been long hidden; show what the powerful would often prefer to remain unseen or undisturbed.
Iconic events Praxis has tried to make films about include: Bloody Sunday, the life and death of Che Guevara, the Kennedys’ and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, Chernobyl, the death of John Lennon, 9/11, 7/7. Films that came about because of our own personal experiences, backgrounds or histories include ones on: modern rural poverty, ill health in children, being the victim of computer crime and Bloody Sunday. Getting funding and a slot for films is difficult and highly competitive, so often we have developed investigative films but not actually got the commission to make them. Others have often done so on our issues however, so justice has often been done.
The difficulty is in the nature of such films. Investigative films may take many years to progress from the seed of the idea to screen. After an original idea comes expensive, patient, painstaking research, knowing that it may all come to nought. Interviewees agree to take part, get cold feet, drop in and drop out. Documents, photographs, audio, film evidence or illustration are crucial and often elusive.
We, filmmakers in general struggle to make these films precisely because they take so long, and need such care and luck to bring them off. Yet people, society, the world, all of us need such films as never before. Globalisation of industry, business, commerce, law, culture, media, morality, politics, economics, anything, everything, means ever greater globalisation of secrecy, non-information and mis-information.
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A Sunday afternoon in late January, 1972. 10,000 Civil Rights Marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, are in festive mood as they march. Coming to a barrier, manned by soldiers and police, the march veers away. Suddenly British Paratroopers open fire; 13 people lie dead, 13 people lie wounded in less than 15 minutes. Arguably the event that triggers The Troubles for the next 30 years, causing over 3,000 deaths and 10,000 injuries in Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday is re-investigated in this film that won plaudits galore and has shown in over 60 countries world-wide. Arguably it helped bring about the 4 year Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday, where three of the production team gave evidence.
"A fine film that sensitively sheds new light on a story that is iconic of and for our times”.
(The Independent.)
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Even the vocabulary is Victorian! Gangmasters contract with farmers and food factories in East Anglia to provide seasonal labour. Gangmasters are paid a set rate, entitlements, and money to cover transport costs etc.. They in turn hire casual labour, but often pay them way below the going rate, do not acknowledge entitlements and charge the workers for their transport. Working conditions are harsh, piece work with high targets often the norm. Gangmasters can get very rich; workers can get in and remain in debt. A film that took 7 years to get inside this world, and come to fruition.
“Known about by rumour, but never shown – until now.”
(The Eastern Daily News.)
Enjoy some other clips from our work in This Praxis Broadcast Showcase, and a little background information about each film.
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