Plastic Bullets: The Silent Scream (1989)

Initially entitled "Sixteen dead", this documentary was renamed after the death of fifteen year old Seamus Duffy, which brought the total number (at that time) of fatal victims of plastic bullets in Northern Ireland to seventeen (eight of them children aged fifteen and under). Commissioned by Channel Four television in 1987, "Plastic Bullets : The Silent Scream" was made by Belfast Independent Video - now Northern Visions - in close collaboration with the relatives of those killed or injured by Plastic Bullets dired by the Security Forces on the streets of Northern Ireland. The issues raised in the film touch not only the circumstances of the killings but also the role of the media and the courts in maintaining "the official version". The controversial nature of the documentary, however, led to it effectively being banned from transmission, but it was eventually to be shown as part of a series on censorhip in Britain today by the prestigious National Film Theatre in London.