February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
“An Unreliable Witness” is about the experience of a British journalist, David Tereshchuk, who was in Derry on Jan. 30, 1972 and, caught up in the events of the day, witnessed the killing of the 13 Catholic civil rights marchers — and is then called to appear 30 years later as a witness at the Saville Inquiry.
As Tereshchuk prepares to leave New York, where he now lives, he confesses at length about how he feels his testimony is unreliable, because he was traumatized by the events of Bloody Sunday and for many of the 30 or so intervening years, he sought to suppress his memories.
In Derry, Tereshchuk meets Bloody Sunday historian Don Mullan who was also at the Bloody Sunday March as a teenager and whose book “Eyewitness Bloody Sunday” has been credited with the reopening of the investigation into Bloody Sunday.
Filmmaker Michael McHugh is an Irish American who has a deep interest in his Irish heritage and Irish history, and who worked with Tereshchuk and heard him mention his misgivings about being called before the Saville Inquiry. Tereshchuk’s experience formed the basis for a documentary in McHugh’s mind, and he went on to make “An Unreliable Witness” with his wife, Kathy, and their production company, GRACE pictures (www.gracepictures.net).
Tension in the documentary comes from Tereshchuk’s struggle to re-create from memory the events of Bloody Sunday — separating out what he really witnessed from what he had heard or read about since.
Tereshchuk is especially unnerved when Lord Saville notes that he is to attend the inquiry and alludes to his belief that journalists “make especially good witnesses.”
This movie tackles the Bloody Sunday story from an unusual angle. Its production is excellent and its narrative strength keeps the viewer focused for its full 77 minutes.
“An Unreliable Witness” will be screened at United Artists Battery Park Theater 11 (UA), 102 North End Ave. (at Vesey Street) in Manhattan
New York City, NY, on the following dates and times: May 3, 9:15 p.m.; May 5, 5:45 p.m., and May 8, 11:45 a.m.
Tickets are $10 and can be bought online at www.tribecafilmfestival.org or
by phone at (866) 941-FEST (3378) or (212) 941-1515, or at the box office.
Further information about “An Unreliable Witness” is available at the Tribeca Film Festival Web site, www.tribecafilmfestival.org, and a trailer of the movie will be available there as well.