New Lodge in the centre of Belfast is a neighbourhood still haunted by the nearly 30-year conflict between Catholics and Protestants that officially ended in 1998. An elderly man on his final, existential mission confronts the ghosts of the past. His name is Joe and behind his unforgettable face, we can still recognise the boy who joined the bitter struggle for a united Ireland too young. Through his conversations with his psychologist Rita, a rift appears in time and space, ushering in the spectres of Irish revolutionary fighters. His seventeen-year-old uncle, killed by a death squad. The street fights. The Troubles. The hunger strikes and the funeral of Bobby Sands, an icon of resistance to British rule whose death caused protests and rebellions across Northern Ireland and whose funeral was attended by over 100,000 people. Belfast’s painful modern history is tightly interlaced with the lives of Joe and other New Lodge residents in Alessandra Celesia’s creatively and conceptually daring film, which deliberately takes place in the 1970s, yet is unmistakably contemporary. With reconstructions and compelling use of archival footage, Celesia paints a picture of a subjective state where the past is never really done. Together with New Lodge residents, who readily participate in her collective theatre, Celesia presents a multi-layered and provocative tribute to the legacy of Irish revolutionaries and a moving reminder of the lasting trauma of political violence. The director doesn’t allow directorial vanity to get in her way as the story outgrows its boundaries and confidently chooses to follow where the fantastically vivid characters lead her. We live in a world of divisions, borders and locked doors. Showing up like a conversation taking place through one of those locked doors, The Flats is a collective portrait of a handful of proud, witty, resourceful individuals who may be willing to die for their community, but choose the harder, braver, more hopeful option daily — to live for their community. Movies may not heal wounds, but they may paint a defiant smile on one’s face, even if the smile is an exhausted one, weary from sadness and constant struggle. In the words of another fallen Irish hero, Terence MacSwiney, “It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer.”

*The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Alessandra Celesia

Awards and Festivals:

CPH:DOX (2024) – world premiere, DOX:AWARD winner