Lessons Learned from Northern Ireland

Promoting the future film

Imagine an eight year old girl who sees nothing unusual in being separated from her school by barbed wire. Imagine the roads of your city blocked by police wielding assault rifles.

Jeff Cusack did more than imagine these grim scenes; he witnessed them two years ago while participating in Saint Mary’s Northern Ireland Conflict Resolution Project, and now the former editor of the SMU Journal is raising money to make a film that follows the next group of Saint Mary’s students to visit Belfast as part of this project.

In the proposed documentary, Belfast: Students in Conflict, Cusack’s aim is to raise awareness about the continuing struggles of Northern Ireland by depicting the gut-level reactions of the Saint Mary’s students who visit there in February 2012 as part of the 7th annual Northern Ireland Conflict Resolution Project.

"Fundamentally this is a story about a society whose divisions became so deep that they lead to violence,” explains Cusack. “In a world that is becoming increasingly partisan, the lessons of Northern Ireland need to be understood now more than ever.”

By posting the details of the future documentary on IndieGoGo, an online platform for fund raising, Cusack hopes to raise the $10,000 needed to make the film.  

For more information visit the website or the Facebook site created by Jeff Cusack and the film’s director, Everett Stone.

This page last modified Wednesday, 17-Aug-2011 16:50:19 ADT