This is the story of Mairéad Mc Ilkenny and Christine Savage, growing up in post-war Belfast. Two strong, young women with their everyday life struggles, living as in different worlds in the same city, cut off from each other by many high walls. A film about two girls struggle for the right to do things their own way.

Mairéad
Mairéad is 20 years old and has grown up in a Catholic enclave.
She stands looking out over her home, seeing all the walls around her. Childhood memories of brutal arrests of her father at night and a constant fear for her life mix with wonderings what the “other side” looks like. She has never gotten to know a Protestant in her entire life – until the day her flatmate starts a new relationship. Suddenly “the other side” has moved into her house.

Christine
Christine is Protestant and walks on the other side of the walls with her pram and young daughter. She is 18 years old and wishes most of all that her baby will have more choices when she grows up.
Christine dreams about a house of her own and a boy to love. When she finally finds him - he’s a Catholic.

Malin, director
Swedish director Malin Andersson follows the lives of these young women. Barbed wire and sandbags from the early days of the war in Northern Ireland have long since become permanent walls. The “peacewalls” keep the two communities apart creating divisions as brutal as ever, nearly a decade into the peace process. The legacy to the young generation is clear. You don’t mix.


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Mairéad

Christine

Screenings

Belfast Girls, Review of documentary films

Terespola, Poland

2009.05.17
European Teenagers Film festival

France

2008.11.20
15th Altžnkoza Film, Culture and Art Festival

Istanbul, Turkey

2008.06.03 - 2008.06.07
Craic Irish Festival

NYC, USA

2008.03.09
Cinemagic Film Festival

Belfast

2007.11.22
Traces de Vies - Rencontres du Film Documentaire

Clermont Ferrand

2007.11.19 - 2007.11.25
One World

Bratislava, Slovakien

2007.11.06 - 2007.11.11
St. John's International Womens Film Festival

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

2007.10.19
International 1001 Documentary Film Festival

Istanbul, Turkey

2007.10.03 - 2007.10.07
Skånska Filmdagarna

Malmö, Sweden

2007.05.13 - 2007.05.15
Women's Film Festival, Skånska Filmdagarna

Malmö, Sweden

2007.04.05 - 2007.04.12