In 1988, following a wave of IRA atrocities, the British Government introduced a Broadcasting Ban, silencing Sinn Féin and other loyalist and republican paramilitary groups by forbidding broadcasters to allow anyone affiliated with these bodies to speak on television or radio. Bizarrely, however, a legal loophole allowed broadcasters to circumvent the ban by simply employing actors to re-voice the original sequences. Using unseen archive footage and present-day interviews with key figures such as Gerry Adams and Stephen Rea, The Ban reflects on the British government’s use of the threat of ‘terrorism’ to justify censorship, drawing inevitable comparisons with the present.
Roisin Agnew
Director
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The Class of ‘9271%
Public Speaking70%
Directed by John Ford70%
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McQueen74%
The Cheshire Murders65%
Voyeur59%
Maternal Instinct71%
Lionel Messi: Destiny78%
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Sherman's March67%
Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story62%
Sidney70%
The Assassination of Jesse James: Death of an Outlaw66%
Harmontown66%
In the Realms of the Unreal71%
Above Majestic73%
John Candy: I Like Me78%
