Project Detail

A Mother Brings Her Son to be Shot

Synopsis

One night Majella O'Donnell took her teenage son Philly to be shot in both legs. Majella, Philly and his shooters all live within an extraordinary community in Derry, Northern Ireland. The “Troubles” officially ended in 1998 but they are still at war. They do not accept the government or police.
All this happens within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.
How do you bring your son to be shot? What happens afterwards? How does family life continue? How does a community respond? When do wars really end? For five years Sinéad O’Shea has filmed this shocking but darkly humorous portrait of a post conflict society.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - World premiere

Details

Year
2017
Type of project
Features
Running time
84 mins
Director
Sinéad O'Shea 1st Feature
Producer
Ailish Bracken, Sinead O'Shea, Figs Jackman
Executive Producer
Joshua Oppenheimer, André Singer, Katie Holly, Edward Dallal, Kieron J. Walsh, Eddie Doyle, Lesley McKimm, Niamh O'Connor
Editor
Enda O'Dowd
Screenwriter
Sinéad O'Shea
Director of Photography
Richard Kendrick, Ross McDonnell, Enda O'Dowd, Sinéad O'Shea, Paddy Stevenson
Sound
Killian Fitzgerald Re-recording Mixer, Sound Editor and Dubbing Mixer, Sound Editor : Killian Fitzgerald
Composer
George Brennan
Film image
© Blinder Films and SOS Productions Limited

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Ireland, UK coproduction

A Blinder Films (IE), Spring Films (UK) production

Sales Company

Cat & Docs

Catherine Le Clef
18, Rue Quincampoix
75004 Paris
France

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

A black and white archive image of Arnold Schwarzenegger smoking a cigar with a woman Erwin W. Wyrsch: The Photo Journalist

Director: Mark Forbes

Year: 2021

Erwin Wyrsch is a retired Swiss photo journalist from 1960's to 1990's where he met Peter Fonda, Billy Idol and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Erwin brought the idea of a Motorcycle Benefit event, based on the model of the American love ride, to Switzerland. He believes the art of taking a photo has been lost in the modern world. He spends his senior years restoring his convertible vintage Lotus in his friend's garage in Switzerland.

A woman paints on a large canvas in bright colours The End of Times

Director: Luca Anzalone

Year: 2026

Caught between her indigenous Buryat roots—where art is a shamanic window between worlds—and a Western market that treats culture as a commodity, artist Yuma Radne constructs a monumental canvas to confront the psychological distortions of colonization at the edge of an irreversible era. "Either you make art, or you suffer. It’s like a curse." For painter Yuma Radne, the act of creation is not an aesthetic choice, but an ancestral code carried in the blood. Moving from a remote Siberian village to the high-stakes European art world, Yuma finds herself navigating a surreal landscape where sacred cultural identity is rapidly converted into a luxury product. Through intimate studio dialogues and raw philosophical reflections, the film captures the gruelling physical and mental labour behind her graduation masterpiece, The End of Times. Centred around a gargantuan erupting booze (a traditional Buryat dumpling) mutated into an absurd, monumental symbol of a colonised and erased national identity, the film transcends a typical artist portrait. It becomes a vital, cosmic meditation on why humanity continues to create art in the face of systemic collapse—and a powerful testament to an indigenous culture refusing to be reduced to a souvenir.

A lady with white hair sat in a chair talking with a customer surrounded by fabrics Tobias and the Angel

Director: Mark Forbes

Year: 2021

Tobias & The Angel are famous for their shop in West London where all the different aspects of what they do that are combined to make it feel like home. The shop is owned and run by Angel Hughes and has a story to tell about her family beginnings.