Film showing: Sacco and Vanzetti

antrim | arts and media | event notice Monday March 26, 2007 00:30 by Ciarán

Irish premiere

Sacco and Vanzetti

An Chultúrlann,
Falls Road, Belfast

Monday 26th March, 7.30pm

£4.50/£3.50

Part of Belfast Film Festival

Two immigrants accused of murder and electrocuted in the U.S. after a trial widely recognized as pervaded by intolerance and prejudice.

The first major documentary film about this landmark case, this film tells the story of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The two Italian immigrants, anarchists and writers, were accused of a murder in 1920, and executed in Boston in 1927 after a notoriously prejudiced trial.

The ordeal of Sacco and Venzetti came to symbolise the bigotry and intolerance directed at immigrants and dissenters in America, and millions of people in the U.S. and around the world protested on their behalf. On this the eightieth anniversary of their executions, their story continues to have great resonance as America once again grapples with issues of civil liberties and the rights of immigrants in the wake of 9/11.

A beautifully rendered tale of tragic injustice, the film makes the historical uncannily present through interviews, music, poetry, and by interweaving readings of Sacco and Vanzetti's powerful prison writings.