HOW THE OMAGH FILM WAS CREATED
How Omagh the film was created
Making a film about the Omagh atrocity was never going to be an easy task. Sensitivities are raw; for some it's too soon; there are the inevitable conflicting viewpoints. And above all, there are the unresolved truths about what happened and whether it could have been avoided.
But throughout the last five years, a group of families the Omagh Support and Self Help Group - have been pursuing a patient, determined, indomitable campaign to bring those responsible for the bomb to justice, and to hold to account politicians and police on both sides of the border who promised so much in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity but who in the families' eyes have delivered all too little.
This public campaign the families' ongoing struggle to be acknowledged and heard is the one consistent thread that runs throughout the past five years and it is the basis of this film and the source of its legitimacy.
Paul Greengrass first made contact with Michael Gallagher and the Omagh Support and Self Help Group nearly three years ago as he was completing Bloody Sunday. "There are two events that frame the Troubles, one was Bloody Sunday, the moment at which the progress towards conflict became unstoppable, and Omagh, which marked the moment at which everyone knew the conflict had to end. The Omagh bomb remains the single greatest atrocity of the Troubles and was all the more tragic in that it happened at a time when the people of these islands were beginning to believe that the bloody conflict they had lived with all their lives might be coming to an end.
"Out of tragedy the families of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group have pursued a campaign for justice that symbolizes hope for us all. And it was important for me, having made the first film, to bookend the conflict with this one."
Like Bloody Sunday, Omagh is an Anglo/Irish collaboration. Together with Don Mullan, (author of the acclaimed Eyewitness Bloody Sunday) with whom he had worked on Bloody Sunday, Greengrass approached the Omagh Support and Self Help Group and the Gallagher family, to seek their support for the project. Without the consent of the Support Group and the individual families depicted in this film, this project could never have been made.
The project then moved forward with co-writer Guy Hibbert (May 33rd), director Peter Travis (Henry VIII), producer Ed Guiney (The Magdelene Sisters) and script editor Lucy Dyke, supported by the film's executive producers Greg Brenman (Tiger Aspect), Andrew Lowe (Element Films) and Arthur Lappin (Hell's Kitchen International).
As producer Ed Guiney explains, "From the very start it was recognised that a film which tells the story of a tragedy which impacted hugely on the minds and consciousness of Ireland and the UK should be a collaboration between British and Irish filmmakers, producers and broadcasters. It was felt that only by drawing on a shared experience and perspective could the production team hope to help develop and produce a film which would set out to tell the story of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, the public face of many of the families of the victims of the Omagh bomb and itself a monument to cross community unity in the face of the most inhumane repression."
Thirty-one lives were lost in the Omagh bomb, devastating a small town and leaving a lasting legacy. Greengrass was conscious of the sensitivities around the timing of such a traumatic story. "It's terribly difficult to make a judgement about the right time to make a film like this and obviously some families wish to grieve privately, but the families of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group have been in the public eye throughout the last five years, pursuing a legal campaign, shortly to come before the courts, with far reaching implications for all of us and it feels the right moment for them to be heard, to bring their story to a wider audience so we can all understand the journey they have made."
Don Mullan has a lifetime's experience campaigning on behalf of the victims of the Troubles. Throughout the making of Omagh, Mullan has fulfilled the crucial role of liaising with bereaved families. He describes his first meeting with the Omagh families as "difficult, traumatic and sorrowful."
Mullan found that most families welcomed the idea of a film, although they expressed a range of reactions. "Those involved in the civil action against the suspected bombers and the issuing of writs against the British Government and former RUC could see that the film would be important in helping to inform a wider public, indeed the world, of their struggle for justice and accountability. Others, still trying to cope with the rawness of their loss, expressed views that ranged from opposition, to wishing the production well but stating they were unable to be involved due to their sorrow and suffering. We also consulted widely throughout Omagh's religious and civic leaders, all of whom were sympathetic to the aims of the production."
John Yorke, Channel 4's Head of Drama greenlit Omagh as soon as he had read the first draft of the script. "Immediately I could see this project was capable of making an incredibly powerful statement, not only about the Omagh Support Group's courage and resilience but also about terrible impact of terrorism - a story which has resonance for us all."
Once the script was agreed upon the families entrusted the director Pete Travis to tell their story on screen and the production was ready to roll.
Omagh was filmed in and around Dublin at the end of 2003. To film in Omagh would have been insensitive and inappropriate, particularly when it came to recreating the explosion of the bomb. This was filmed in the town of Navan, near Dublin, where the centre of Omagh was recreated.
It was a huge responsibility to create an authentic representation of the families' story on film. "The point about representing real people is you have to be sensitive to their understanding of events, to see it way they do, involving them in the process and them trusting you to tell their story as honestly as you can. The responsibility here is to make the best film you can, to make a film that people have to see because this is a story that has to be told. It's a tremendous honour to be trusted with it" says director Pete Travis.
VIVID REALISM
Recreating a real event requires a particular directorial approach and Travis rose to the challenge. "You can't approach the film in any other way than as if you are filming a fly on the wall documentary, what your after is vivid realism. You want to tell a truthful story, so it's all hand held cameras, no lights, no artifice of any kind. You have to capture a moment in time and try and get it right first time. There is a tradition of documentary style films from the "Battle of Algiers", to "Z" and "Bloody Sunday", they were the inspiration."
The team agreed to show the film to the families before anyone else saw it. "We hope that they will feel we have done justice to their story and told it authentically," says producer Ed Guiney.
Ultimately, the point of Omagh is to tell the Support Group's story. "It allows their struggle for justice and their pain to be heard by a national and international audience. And it has a wider importance too I believe the film is a wake up call with regards to our fragile peace process and a stark reminder of a past we hope will never be visited on innocent people again," says Don Mullan. Equally the film is an intensely moving account of a family's trauma and journey towards recovery.
As McSorley puts it "There is universality to this story anybody anywhere in the world will recognise the pain and loss of the Gallagher family."
Making a film about the Omagh atrocity was never going to be an easy task. Sensitivities are raw; for some it's too soon; there are the inevitable conflicting viewpoints. And above all, there are the unresolved truths about what happened and whether it could have been avoided.
But throughout the last five years, a group of families the Omagh Support and Self Help Group - have been pursuing a patient, determined, indomitable campaign to bring those responsible for the bomb to justice, and to hold to account politicians and police on both sides of the border who promised so much in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity but who in the families' eyes have delivered all too little.
This public campaign the families' ongoing struggle to be acknowledged and heard is the one consistent thread that runs throughout the past five years and it is the basis of this film and the source of its legitimacy.
Paul Greengrass first made contact with Michael Gallagher and the Omagh Support and Self Help Group nearly three years ago as he was completing Bloody Sunday. "There are two events that frame the Troubles, one was Bloody Sunday, the moment at which the progress towards conflict became unstoppable, and Omagh, which marked the moment at which everyone knew the conflict had to end. The Omagh bomb remains the single greatest atrocity of the Troubles and was all the more tragic in that it happened at a time when the people of these islands were beginning to believe that the bloody conflict they had lived with all their lives might be coming to an end.
"Out of tragedy the families of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group have pursued a campaign for justice that symbolizes hope for us all. And it was important for me, having made the first film, to bookend the conflict with this one."
Like Bloody Sunday, Omagh is an Anglo/Irish collaboration. Together with Don Mullan, (author of the acclaimed Eyewitness Bloody Sunday) with whom he had worked on Bloody Sunday, Greengrass approached the Omagh Support and Self Help Group and the Gallagher family, to seek their support for the project. Without the consent of the Support Group and the individual families depicted in this film, this project could never have been made.
The project then moved forward with co-writer Guy Hibbert (May 33rd), director Peter Travis (Henry VIII), producer Ed Guiney (The Magdelene Sisters) and script editor Lucy Dyke, supported by the film's executive producers Greg Brenman (Tiger Aspect), Andrew Lowe (Element Films) and Arthur Lappin (Hell's Kitchen International).
As producer Ed Guiney explains, "From the very start it was recognised that a film which tells the story of a tragedy which impacted hugely on the minds and consciousness of Ireland and the UK should be a collaboration between British and Irish filmmakers, producers and broadcasters. It was felt that only by drawing on a shared experience and perspective could the production team hope to help develop and produce a film which would set out to tell the story of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, the public face of many of the families of the victims of the Omagh bomb and itself a monument to cross community unity in the face of the most inhumane repression."
Thirty-one lives were lost in the Omagh bomb, devastating a small town and leaving a lasting legacy. Greengrass was conscious of the sensitivities around the timing of such a traumatic story. "It's terribly difficult to make a judgement about the right time to make a film like this and obviously some families wish to grieve privately, but the families of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group have been in the public eye throughout the last five years, pursuing a legal campaign, shortly to come before the courts, with far reaching implications for all of us and it feels the right moment for them to be heard, to bring their story to a wider audience so we can all understand the journey they have made."
Don Mullan has a lifetime's experience campaigning on behalf of the victims of the Troubles. Throughout the making of Omagh, Mullan has fulfilled the crucial role of liaising with bereaved families. He describes his first meeting with the Omagh families as "difficult, traumatic and sorrowful."
Mullan found that most families welcomed the idea of a film, although they expressed a range of reactions. "Those involved in the civil action against the suspected bombers and the issuing of writs against the British Government and former RUC could see that the film would be important in helping to inform a wider public, indeed the world, of their struggle for justice and accountability. Others, still trying to cope with the rawness of their loss, expressed views that ranged from opposition, to wishing the production well but stating they were unable to be involved due to their sorrow and suffering. We also consulted widely throughout Omagh's religious and civic leaders, all of whom were sympathetic to the aims of the production."
John Yorke, Channel 4's Head of Drama greenlit Omagh as soon as he had read the first draft of the script. "Immediately I could see this project was capable of making an incredibly powerful statement, not only about the Omagh Support Group's courage and resilience but also about terrible impact of terrorism - a story which has resonance for us all."
Once the script was agreed upon the families entrusted the director Pete Travis to tell their story on screen and the production was ready to roll.
Omagh was filmed in and around Dublin at the end of 2003. To film in Omagh would have been insensitive and inappropriate, particularly when it came to recreating the explosion of the bomb. This was filmed in the town of Navan, near Dublin, where the centre of Omagh was recreated.
It was a huge responsibility to create an authentic representation of the families' story on film. "The point about representing real people is you have to be sensitive to their understanding of events, to see it way they do, involving them in the process and them trusting you to tell their story as honestly as you can. The responsibility here is to make the best film you can, to make a film that people have to see because this is a story that has to be told. It's a tremendous honour to be trusted with it" says director Pete Travis.
VIVID REALISM
Recreating a real event requires a particular directorial approach and Travis rose to the challenge. "You can't approach the film in any other way than as if you are filming a fly on the wall documentary, what your after is vivid realism. You want to tell a truthful story, so it's all hand held cameras, no lights, no artifice of any kind. You have to capture a moment in time and try and get it right first time. There is a tradition of documentary style films from the "Battle of Algiers", to "Z" and "Bloody Sunday", they were the inspiration."
The team agreed to show the film to the families before anyone else saw it. "We hope that they will feel we have done justice to their story and told it authentically," says producer Ed Guiney.
Ultimately, the point of Omagh is to tell the Support Group's story. "It allows their struggle for justice and their pain to be heard by a national and international audience. And it has a wider importance too I believe the film is a wake up call with regards to our fragile peace process and a stark reminder of a past we hope will never be visited on innocent people again," says Don Mullan. Equally the film is an intensely moving account of a family's trauma and journey towards recovery.
As McSorley puts it "There is universality to this story anybody anywhere in the world will recognise the pain and loss of the Gallagher family."
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/1664
Published Date: 20-May-04
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