SCREENINGS

SYNOPSIS

Lyra McKee is an emerging young queer journalist from Northern Ireland. In her texts she deals with her own coming out, but above all with her generation, the so-called “Ceasefire Babies”: those children who were too young at the time of the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement in 1998 to remember the everyday violence that preceded it. They were supposed to know only peace. Lyra’s own work shows that appearances have always been deceiving: high suicide rates, lack of prospects, and violence shape the lives of her generation. On April 18, 2019, Lyra was shot and killed during riots in Derry. She became the 160th murder victim of the Northern Ireland conflict since the peace agreement. Director Alison Millar had been accompanying Lyra with her camera long before her death. With a mix of Lyra’s home videos, public appearances, and conversations with her partner and family, creates a moving and stirring portrait of this highly intelligent and endearing woman.

Alison Millar

Biography

Alison Millar is one of the UK and Ireland’s most respected documentary filmmakers. She is a BAFTA, IFTA and Prix Italia winner as well as winning both the UK and Northern Ireland Royal Television Society award in 2016 for the documentary KIDS IN CRISIS. In 2010, Alison founded Erica Starling Productions Ltd, an independent documentary production company in Belfast.

Filmography

The Father, the Son, and the Housekeeper (2008), The Disappeared (2013), Dispatches: Kids in Crisis (2016), Searching for Shergar (2018), Lyra (2022)