The Ban & Eyes of Gaza

Programme

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  The Ban

  Northern Ireland experienced a bloody year in 1987, with many terrorist attacks by the IRA. To deprive this paramilitary organization of “the oxygen of publicity”, in 1988 Margaret Thatcher’s government banned UK radio and TV from giving airtime to representatives of the IRA and its political wing Sinn Féin.
  
  Because of a loophole in the law – the censorship only applied to voices – media organizations circumvented it by having actors dub the voices of the interviewees. On one occasion, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams was voiced by actor Stephen Rea.
  
  In The Ban, Adams and Rea, among others, look back on this bizarre period, which lasted until 1994. Danny Morrison, Sinn Féin’s press officer at the time, describes the censorship as a farce. The film ends with the warning that the British government is once again using the threat of terrorism to censor free speech and the right to protest.

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  Eyes of Gaza

  Eyes of Gaza begins with the message that at least 108 journalists and other reporters have been killed so far during the war in Gaza. That makes it the deadliest conflict for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists started collecting data in 1992.
  
  This hellish portrait follows three Palestinian journalists in northern Gaza as they risk their lives for their work. We see them talking with local people, reporting on bombardments, sleeping on just a few folded-up sheets, and struggling with a lack of phone coverage.
  
  They feel the obligation to continue their work, even though they know they are risking their lives in a conflict that spares no one. But the mission always comes before personal safety, as a seriously injured fellow journalist reports from his hospital bed.
  
  The journalistic message must be conveyed, whatever the cost, in this utterly bleak account dominated by gray and dark blue: the gray of the endless debris and rubble of shattered Gaza and the dark blue of the bullet-proof vests worn by journalists.