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Introduction The short documentary, Unheard Voices, tells the story of six individuals who either lost someone or were themselves injured during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In this chapter we describe how we worked with the individuals in the film to establish a model of documentary film-making that would allow them to tell their story. The approach arose from the Prison Memory Archive Project (PMA), a collection of memories of former prisoners , prison officers and many other professionals who spent time in the Maze/Long Kesh and Armagh prisons, recorded as they walked around the prison site recalling their experiences.1 For both the PMA and Unheard Voices, we found that a collaborative approach, whereby copyright of the recorded material is shared with the film-makers and the participants, is invaluable when recording stories from conflict. Context Unheard Voices was produced in Northern Ireland in 2009, fifteen years after the first ceasefire of 1994 and eleven years after the Belfast Agreement of 1998. The peace process in the North of Ireland has been uneven and reflects political contestations over, and competing interpretations of, our conflicted past. This was reinforced by the fact that acts of violence continued during production and exhibition of the film. On 7 March 2009, Patrick Azimkar (21) and Mark Quinsey (23), two British soldiers were shot at Massereene Army Barracks in Antrim. The Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA) claimed responsibility. On 9 March 2009, Stephen Carroll (48), a Catholic police officer, was shot while in his patrol car. The Continuity IRA claimed responsibility . On 24 May 2009 Kevin Brendan McDaid (49), a Catholic community worker, was killed by a group of approximately thirty men in a sectarian attack in Coleraine. Nine men were arrested following the attack. Within this context of violence and loss, a growing ‘community’ of victims and survivors has taken advantage of new technologies to tell their stories. Making a documentary film 29 Unheard Voices Recording stories from the troubles JOLENE MAIRS and CAHAL MCLAUGHLIN with victims of the Troubles offers challenges in terms of representing and presenting sensitive material in the context of recent, and at times current, political violence. We were aware that our approach would need to go beyond that of conventional film-making approaches where the subject of the documentary signs their copyright over to the film-maker or production company to be used and shown in any context that the production company sees fit. Our collaborative approach, where copyright is shared between the filmmakers and the film’s participants, perhaps offers some guidelines for the emerging trend of films by and about victims and survivors of the Troubles. Prison Memory Archive Our approach to Unheard Voices emerged out of the Prison Memory Archive project at the University of Ulster. During 2006 and 2007, the PMA recorded stories from Armagh gaol and the Maze/Long Kesh prison with over 200 participants , ranging from prison staff and prisoners to teachers and chaplains, who ‘walked and talked’ their way around the empty prison sites. The aim of the digital archive, currently in post-production, is to allow interactive multinarrative viewing, so that audiences can choose which themes and combinations of stories to view, with the intention of addressing the need to see and hear the ‘other’ stories that often remain hidden to one or other constituency in the Troubles. The protocols drawn up by the PMA include involvement of the participants at all stages of the production and exhibition. In order to emphasise the need for participants to remain the authors of their own stories, which is acknowledged as an important part of their healing process, an agreement was drawn up and signed by both parties establishing each as co-owner of the material. This means that the participants have a full veto of the material that they contribute. While this involves substantial risk, in that the material could be withdrawn at the end of the production process, its importance lies in the creation and maintenance of trust, a necessary part of recording such sensitive content, both in psychological and political terms. Unheard Voices With a small grant from the University of Ulster’s (UU) Cultural Development Office, we held discussions with Coleraine Borough Council, telling them about our model of collaborative film-making. We discussed the possibility of extending this work from prisoners to survivor groups, which led us to the Ballymoney branch of WAVE Trauma Centre.2 Unlike the PMA...

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