THE FLATS IFTA award winning documentary in Irish cinemas May 23rd

“Perceptive and innovative documentary unpacks pain of the Troubles”…. The Irish Independent, 4*

Films de Force Majeure, Thank you & Good Night Productions, Planet Korda Pictures, Dumbworld and The Party Film Sales present THE FLATS, a film by Alessandra Celesia.

In his tower-block apartment in New Lodge, Joe re-enacts memories from his childhood amidst the “Troubles“.  In this Catholic area of Belfast, the number of deaths was tragically significant.  Joe is joined by neighbours Jolene, Sean, Angie, and others, all willingly participating in this process of revisiting the collective memories that shaped their lives and the district they live in.

In cinemas Friday, 23rd May.

The Flats – 2025 IFTA George Morrison Award winner for feature documentary – is an exciting production adventure featuring a startling mix of documentary cinema, collective (re)creation, Irish dark humour, British realism and Italian warmth. Alessandra and producer Jean-Laurent Csinidis (Films de Force Majeure) met in 2018 in Lussas, a French historical venue for independent documentary filmmakers. The Flats is now the second film they are releasing together, after The Mechanics of Things (2023).

The Flats takes place around the New Lodge apartment blocks, in the North of Belfast.  Filmmaker Alessandra Celesia was born in Italy and lives between Paris and Belfast.  Celesia says “New Lodge is a visual experience because of the towers, the flats. They’re really peculiar in Belfast because it’s really not a high-rise town.  I started to make enquiries and it turned out New Lodge was the area where my husband’s dad’s family was originally from.  It was just a crazy coincidence that I was digging into family history without knowing.”

She continued, “I arrived in the North for the first time just before the Good Friday Agreement and I said I would never make a film about the Troubles. It’s the past, it’s finished, and now we’re looking for something else.  And I kept my promise until I found New Lodge, where it’s just so clear there is this whole generation traumatized by this thing that they never got over. For any war, this is exactly what happens. Once you start it, there will always be a group left frozen in that time, for their whole life.”

Producer Jeremiah Cullinane said “We wanted the financing strategy to really match the purpose of the film, which is about healing the wounds left by history – and ultimately, reconciliation. This is why we have been so grateful that Screen Ireland, Northern Ireland Screen, and the British Film Institute all decided to support this film.  We hope this film contributes to broadening the relevancy of films like The Flats, echoing the way Alessandra widened the framework of documentary filmmaking to tell a story of relevance to us all: that of collective trauma inflicted by history, and the way different generations can (and must!) go forward to write their common history together.”

Supported by Eurimages, Région Sud, Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, Centre du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, BFI Doc Society Fund, RTBF – Unité Documentaire and Magellan Films, UK Tax rebate, Northern Ireland Screen, Bourse Brouillon d’un rêve de la Scam.

This project was selected at Doc Market (development) – Belfast Film Festival (2019 – Northern Ireland), Pitching du réel – Visions du Réel (2019 – Nyon, Switzerland), Doc Corner Prize, Film Market – Cannes Festival (2019 – France), HEAD Prize – Geneva post-production (2019 – Switzerland), Doc Market (postprod.) – Belfast film Festival (2023 – Northern Ireland).