ESPN to make doc on shooting that shocked the country on day of Ireland’s win over Italy at World Cup 1994.
ESPN’s documentary strand 30 for 30 is probably the best in the world at producing consistently excellent sports films right now. Initiated to celebrate the channel’s 30th anniversary with 30 movies in 2009, the series has continued, and its superb high standards have continued too, with brilliant film after brilliant film emerging on virtually every sport and topic imaginable.
Over the weekend, ESPN announced a raft of new documentaries for 2014, all with a soccer theme as part of their build-up to the World Cup called 30 for 30: Soccer Stories.
Of most interest to us is the fact that one of the new run will be a 30-minute documentary on the day Ray Houghton scored the goal that beat Italy at World Cup 1994 and the tragic events that took place that same day at Loughinisland in Down, where six people were shot while watching the game in the Heights Bar.
Called Ceasefire Massacre, the film will attempt to put that event in context with the peace process that was under way at the time and how the shooting contributed to bringing about an end to the cycle of violence.
The 30-minute film will be made by Alex Gibney and Trevor Birney, and that further whets our appetite for the doc. Gibney is the man behind the likes of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God and The Armstrong Lie so if Ceasefire Massacre is half as good as those, it should be fantastic.
ESPN are also making two feature-length docs, one of which will be on the Hillsborough disaster, the search for the truth and how the events of that day led to the game changing forever in England.
In fairness, all the proposed documentaries sound interesting, from a feature on Brazilian legend Garrincha to Maradona ’86, a look at the great man at the absolute peak of his powers.
Full details of all the docs can be seen here. We can’t wait.
