Meeting Room ': New movie Premiere About Concerned Parents Against Drugs

buzz2006

Jameson Dublin international Film Festival Presents.

Meeting Room
Cineworld on Parnell St.
February 21
3.30pm

Check out the Trailer here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br1ZbkDv3YU

Book tickets here : http://jdiff.ticketsolve.com/shows/23497750/events/23530726

Meeting Room, the new documentary film by James Davis and Brian Gray, will have its world premiere at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival on February 21st.



The film shines a powerful searchlight on a controversial moment in recent Dublin history. Meeting Room tells the contested story of the Concerned Parents Against Drugs movement from its emergence in Hardwicke St and St Teresa’s Gardens in the early 1980s to its decline with the imprisonment of some of its leaders at the end of that decade. The film includes an interview with Tony Gregory and features Christy Moore, John ‘Whacker’ Humphries, Bernie Howard, Mick Rafferty, Padraig Yeates, Chris McCarthy and Fr Jim Smyth.



CPAD began in response to the explosion of drug addiction in Dublin in 1982. A lack of action from the authorities meant that residents of the flats complexes where heroin was available were on their own. A mass movement was born in response and dealers were confronted with meetings, patrols, checkpoints and late night evictions. These tactics saw the movement spread throughout the city.



But CPAD’s direct action strained its relationship with the authorities and the media. Charges of vigilantism and republican infiltration dogged the movement and undermined it. Hostility in the press, prosecution in the courts and a violent response from criminals was all balanced against successfully tackling the dealers as the movement rose and fell during the 1980's in Dublin.



Beautifully shot by Palestinian American artist Nida Sinnokrot, Meeting Room reconstructs the social history of CPAD through archival newspaper, film and photographic sources and through the voices of those who participated.



It will screen at Cineworld on Parnell St. February 21 at 3.30pm. 72 minutes. Directors present.


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Angry, provocative and sure to engage and enrage in equal measures, Jim Davis and Brian Gray's new documentary film shines a powerful searchlight on a controversial moment in recent Dublin history. In early 1982, residents of Hardwicke Street called a meeting to address the epidemic of heroin use in the flats and the lack of action from the authorities to address the impending catastrophe. The concerned parents of the area decided to take matters into their own hands and soon had formed a group known as Concerned Parents against Drugs (CPAD) to confront the dealers and drive them out of the neighbourhoods. Checkpoints were set up and patrols put in place; soon, large crowds were publicly evicting unrepentant pushers, and a mass movement was born. Using film, newspaper and photographic archives, Davis’s film reconstructs the social history of the Concerned Parents through their rise and fall in the 1980’s Ireland.

Gráinne Humphreys, JDIFF

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Many thanks
Buzz

Check out the Trailer here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br1ZbkDv3YU