Project Detail

The Negotiator

Name: The Negotiator
Director: Trevor Birney
Released: 2025
Duration: 92 min

©Fine Point Films

Synopsis

The story of George J. Mitchell, a working-class boy from Maine who would become the majority leader of the US Senate and one of the most respected political negotiators and leaders of his generation. From the basketball court of Bowdoin College to the streets of Berlin as a counterintelligence agent, Mitchell tells his incredible story in his own words.
Filmed in his home state of Maine across the summer of 2023, this documentary showcases a problem solver who has worked across the worlds of politics, baseball, and business with an unending passion for understanding through dialogue in his country and around the world, working to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Details

Year: 2025
Type of project: Features
Running time: 92 min
Format: Digital
Director: Trevor Birney
Producer: Andrew Tully, Stephen Douds, Trevor Birney
Executive Producer: Ryan Feeney, Frank Ryan, Declan Kelly, Paul Keary
Editor: Andy Tohill, David Gray
Director of Photography: Carl Best, Allie Humenuk
Sound: Vera Quispe, Matt Twiford, Justin Lacroix, Andy Boag, Davy Kilpatrick, Ben Chesmeau
Composer: James Everett
Film Title Note: FKA The Mitchell Principles

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Fine Point Films

58-60 Upper Arthur Street
Belfast
BT1 4GJ

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In a world riven with conflict what is needed to turn war into peace? How can all parties to a war become all parties to a peace? Experience shows it’s the presence of a critical individual in whom all sides can have confidence to chair talks and create the space for an agreement to emerge. In Northern Ireland, one of the few examples of a long-lasting negotiated peace settlement, that critical person was former US Senate Majority Leader, Senator George J Mitchell. First sent across the Atlantic in 1995 by President Clinton, the Maine native brought patience and persistence to the task which finally saw the historic, all-party peace talks conclude on Good Friday 1998. In this new feature documentary from Fine Point Films, Belfast director Trevor Birney explores Mitchell’s work as a negotiator in the lead-up to the Good Friday Agreement.

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Director: Barnaby Thompson

Year: 2026

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Biography

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Year: 2025

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Biography Black Woman Director