Adams FULL SYNOPSIS – 212 Berlin

Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man

Director: Trisha Ziff

212 BERLIN FILMS

TAG LINE

An intimate portrait of Irish republican leader, Gerry Adams, one of the most important political leaders of our time, he led the people of the North of Ireland from conflict to peace.

SYNOPSIS:

Irish republican leader, Gerry Adams is one of the most important political leaders and visionaries of our time, he led the people of the North of Ireland from conflict to peace, (19681994). Adams was a critical voice in the decision taken independently by the IRA to lay down their arms after their twenty-five-year war against the British. Imprisoned and shot, Adams was demonized and censored by dominant media as a subversive and terrorist – yet in the end the British and their allies were forced to recognize his legitimacy and negotiate with him and his party Sinn Féin, the Irish peace accord, ‘The Good Friday Agreement’. Adams speaks of the influence both personally and for the Irish republican movement of the ANC and Nelson Mandela and how they took the blueprint for ‘peace and reconciliation’ in South Africa and adapted it in their own transition to peace in Ireland. An intensely private man always protecting his family from the public eye, this is the first time, Adams sits down to tell his story, interwoven with the story of the conflict he lived through as a teenage activist, to becoming party leader, and political representative, and internationally recognized and respected leader. Today he is an elder statesman supporting the next generations on their peaceful and inclusive path toward Irish unity.

A Ballymurphy Man is both a unique document as Adams tells his story, while illustrating his words with the wealth of imagery of what is one of the most heavily visually documented conflicts of our time. Layers of both still and moving images interwoven with his voice giving an insight into Adams’ world, relaxed, informal, and uncensored.

Director, Trisha Ziff first met Gerry Adams in 1981 when she lived in the North of Ireland having established a photography and film workshop, ‘Camerawork’ in the Bogside, Derry at the height of the conflict. She has remained in contact with him for over forty years. The film weaves together Adams own story, images from his personal family album with the work of Irish and internationally acclaimed photographers as well as local amateurs, many images discovered in

It is the first time Adams, 76 chooses to participate in a feature documentary about his life. Adams speaks candidly of his childhood growing up with nine siblings in the working-class nationalist neighborhood of Ballymurphy in Belfast: his activism as a young man in the then, illegal political party, Sinn Fein; his prison experiences and later role as a member of both the British and Irish parliaments and president of Sinn Fein, the largest political party today on the island of Ireland. A life spanning war and transition to peace, Adams reflects on twenty-five years since the Good Friday Agreement and the future of Ireland and its move to reunification.

He has survived three assassination attempts and despite this continues to lead a life that is open and accessible within his community, living modestly close to his extended family.

Adams grew up in a politically active home reared by his grandmother: as a boy he was an avid reader, and attributes his poor eyesight to reading from the streetlight in bed at night. Having leb school at 15 he worked in a bar while becoming a pollical activist in Sinn Fein and was actively involved in housing campaigns within the nationalist communities. He was unlawfully imprisoned, (today this is acknowledged by the British), for his activism and at 24 years old he was released and flown to London to negotiate an IRA ceasefire with the British government.

Believing profoundly in negotiation, as a way forward to peace, Adams played a key role in the agreement to the cessation of arms and the dismantling of the IRA in 1997, in the process he won the respect of international leaders including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. A friend to Nelson Mandela, Sinn Fein modeled much of its work in relation to ‘truth and reconciliation on the ANC model, today an integral element within the peace process and philosophy of Sinn Fein. Adams served as a member of both the British and Irish parliaments representing his constituents north and south of the border.

There are few leaders who have successfully led a people committed to armed struggle toward peaceful change, who helped transform what was a small marginalized and outlawed political party to legitimacy. In 2017 Adams announced his retirement from the leadership in Sinn Fein, the party, today is led by two women Michelle O’Neill in the north and in the south, Mary Lou McDonnell the first woman to hold the position of leader of the opposition in the Irish government.

In all his years of activism, Adam’s lifestyle remains unchanged, modest and unassuming his personal life has not changed. Beyond the gaze of the media, Adams is a quiet family man, a writer, long distance walker, dog lover, who spends time in the privacy of his family and close friends - friends who, like him, have been activists for as long as they can remember. Adams continues to live in Belfast escaping when he can from the city, to read and write.

SHORT SYNOPSIS:

An intimate portrait of Irish republican leader, Gerry Adams, one of the most controversial political leaders of our time, led the people of the North of Ireland from conflict to peace. A critical voice in the decision taken independently by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to lay down their arms after their twenty-five-year war against the British. Imprisoned and shot, Adams was demonized and censored by dominant media as a subversive and terrorist – yet in the end the British and their allies were forced to recognize his legitimacy and negotiate with him and his party Sinn Féin, the Irish peace accord, ‘The Good Friday Agreement’.

A Ballymurphy Man is both a unique document as Adams tells his story for the first time, while illustrating his words with the wealth of imagery of what is one of the most heavily photographed conflicts of our time. Layers of both still and moving images interwoven with his voice giving an insight into Adams’ world, relaxed, informal, and uncensored.

A Mexican produced documentary that tells the story of an Irish political activist.

DIRECTORS STATEMENT: Trisha Ziff

I met Gerry Adams first around 1981-1982 I don’t remember exactly but it will have been in Belfast visiting friends at Christmas. I had established Derry Camerawork a community arts organization in the summer of 1981 during the last months of the Hunger Strike. I had moved to Derry to teach young people photography, putting the cameras in the hands of local people to tell their own stories and document events so as not to depend on outside photojournalists to tell their stories. I went for one year I stayed 5 years.

Over those years I would have met Adams on several occasions, but it was not until years later we really became acquainted, after President Clinton gave Adams his first visa for the US in 1993 and his subsequent visit to Los Angeles in 1994. Again, time passed, and I curated an exhibition which went to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) in London, it was the precursor to my first film, Chevolution. an exhibition which told the narrative of the famous image/portrait of Che Guevara by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda. Adams was a member of the British parliament, (an MP) at the time, and I invited him to the museum opening. The V&A is a government funded museum an Adams a democratically elected member of parliament – yet the museum director refused to invite him. It was a scandalous decision on their part that went viral! Needless to say, became the media narrative around the show!

Years passed and I had several films to my name as a doc director and in 2018 I went to see Gerry Adams, now a member of the Irish parliament, a TD, in the Dáil. I asked him about making a documentary portrait of his life. The war had shifted to peace with the Good Friday Agreement years earlier and Adams was on the brink of retiring from both leadership as the President of Sinn Fein and as a member of the Irish parliament. He agreed.

Making this film has been for me the most important film of my career, whether it’s the best film how does one judge that? But for me, it tells a critical story, as Adams reflects on his own life while taking us through the narrative of British occupation, It is impossible to separate his story from that of the Irish conflict. A war and its devastating impact on its people, to a process of dialogue, discussion, compromise which has led to peace.

A Ballymurphy Man is both a unique document as Adams tells his story for the first time, while illustrating his words with the wealth of imagery of what is one of the most heavily visually documented conflicts of our time. Layers of both still and moving images interwoven with his voice giving an insight into Adams’ world, relaxed, informal, and uncensored.

For me it’s a film about hope. A film that explores, the question that if this can happen in Ireland where there are such diverse points of view and cultures, surely it can happen elsewhere.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

Director. Trisha Ziff

Producers: Trisha Ziff & Ross McDonnell (died in 2023)

Executive Producers: Diego Sánchez, Mao Padilla,Bahman Naraghi, Todd Allan, Hugo Villa Smythe

Associate Producers: Marty Glennon, Gerry Ryan.

Cinematographers: Seamus McGarvey, Jeronimo Goded

Sound Design: Pablo Lach

Composer: Jacobo Lieberman

Graphics: Eramos Tantos

Financed by: 212 BERLIN FILMS, ATOMICA, PIXEL, UNAM.

DCP 24p DCI

Color and black & white Audio 5.1 Duration 01:37:17:06

LINKS:

TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/951775913

ENGLISH SUBTITLES:

https://vimeo.com/918492166 password: Berlindoc

SPANISH SUBTITLES:

https://vimeo.com/1011523653 password: 212berlin

AUDIENCE RESPONSE BELFAST: https://vimeo.com/1030461694

FILMOGRAPHY DIRECTOR:

2018 – 24 GERRY ADAMS: A BALLYMURPHY MAN

Director & writer Trisha Ziff

212 BERLIN FILMS

2024 – 2026 FRIDA’s GAZE -in production-

Director Trisha Ziff, writers Marina Stavenhagen & Trisha Ziff

212 BERLIN FIMS

2021 OAXACALIFORNIA: THE RETURN (feature documentary)

Director and written by Trisha Ziff

212 BERLIN FIMS

2019 - A TALE OF TWO KITCHENS (episode of series)

Director and co-writer for No Ficción & Netlfix.

2018 - WITKIN & WITKIN (feature documentary)

Director & Producer Trisha Ziff

212 BERLIN FILMS

2015 - THE MAN WHO SAW TOO MUCH (feature documentary)

Director and Writer Trisha Ziff

212 BERLIN FILMS

2013 - PIRATE STORIES (series shorts)

Series of international shorts on film piracy.

Director, Producer, writer – Trisha Ziff

212BERLIN FILMS

2011-THE MEXICAN SUITCASE (feature documentary)

Director, Producer, writer, Trisha Ziff

212BERLIN FILMS

2008 CHEVOLUTION (feature documentary)

Co -Director & Producer Trisha Ziff

212BERLIN FILMS/ FACTION FILMS.

BIOGRAPHY DIRECTOR:

Trisha Ziff leave England as a young woman and went to live in Derry, N. of Ireland in 1981, to establish a photographic and later film workshop with funding from Channel 4. Her role was to put cameras in the hands of local youth to tell their own stories and not depend on the foreign media to interpret their reality. Having comminated to spending one year in Ireland she stayed five, living in Derry’s Bogside. It was during those years she would meet Adams in both Belfast and Derry as a cultural activist. Over a decade later she met Adams again in Los Angeles, when President Clinton issued him his first visa to visit the U.S.A in 1994, to promote the peace initiative focusing on Irish America. Later Adams would support Ziff when he was banned from attending the opening of an exhibition she curated at the V&A in London on the history of the portrait of Che Guevara by Alberto Korda. This later evolved into her first documentary as a director, Chevolution for Netflix in 2008, in which Adams appears.

Adams and Ziff have known each other for over 40 years. It is because of this longevity and consistency that he gave his agreement to be interviewed and participate openly in this documentary. Begun in 2019 and Interrupted by Covid-19, the film was completed in 2024 a crucial moment, after the chaos and aftermath of Brexit, and the conclusion of the 25th Anniversary of The Good Friday Agreement.