IFTA Members Preview Screening of
'Bobby Sands 66 Days' followed by Q&A with Producer Trevor Birney

The Irish Film & Television Academy are delighted to host a exclusive first look screening of 'Bobby Sands 66 Days' followed by Q&A with Producer Trevor Birney

Bobby Sands: 66 Days, directed by Brendan J Byrne, is a cinematic portrait of the Irish Republican martyr’s epic 66-day hunger strike that grabbed the world’s attention in the early 1980s.

Speaking about the project Byrne said: “Bobby Sands and the 1981 hunger strike is one of the few stories from the Northern Ireland conflict whose myriad threads weave together to give us the bigger picture, and I was intrigued to explore the life of someone who was prepared to die for their beliefs.”

Sands famously led a hunger strike against conditions inside Northern Ireland’s notorious H Blocks that made him an international icon. Seeing himself as a soldier in a conflict, he died for the right to be recognised as a political prisoner. The film’s narrative spine is comprised of Sands’ own words, drawn from his hunger strike diary, a unique insight into the man and his beliefs as he embarked on his final journey.

Using eye-witness testimony, unseen archive, reconstructions and animation, this cinematic odyssey serves as both the definitive account of a self-created Irish martyr and a seismic moment in 20th century Irish history.

The film was produced by Trevor Birney and Brendan J Byrne for Fine Point Films / Cyprus Avenue Films with the Oscar winning filmmaker Alex Gibney a consulting producer.

The Q&A with Trevor Birney will be hosted by Aoife Kelleher (One Million Dubliners)

At 17, Bobby Sands was interested in girls, soccer and music. Ten years later, he led a hunger strike against conditions inside Northern Ireland’s infamous H Blocks that grabbed the worlds attention. Sands became an icon for a world that, to this day, knows little about him. Featuring fresh insight and remarkable archive 66 DAYS brings us the story of this enigmatic prisoner and the events that turned him into a 20th Century icon

With thanks to Wildcard Distrubtion