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H3

NO DISTANT HEROES

By Les BLAIR

ROSA FILMES - as PROD

Drama - Completed 1999

- Year of production
- 1999
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- IRELAND, PORTUGAL, GERMANY
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Director(s)
- Les BLAIR
- Synopsis
- The action occurs in the Block H of Maze Prison in Northern Ireland, between January and the 5th May of 1981 – death of Bobby Sands, in result of a hunger strike. The republican prisoners did this strike in order to obtain the statute of political prisoners. The strike occurred after 4 years of protests, during which the prisoners were confined to their cells wearing nothing but a blanket. And another hunger strike followed – between October and December of 1980 - it only ended because the prisoners thought their demands had been attended.
  From the point of view of the characters the camera follows every event, which will culminate with the death of ten prisoners in Maze prison. The main issue of “H3” is the dilemma lived by those men: should they initiate a hunger strike, or just remain the way they are, under a protest that has already become obsolete?
  Having chosen, as a group, the hunger strike, we see, afterwards, the impact that their personal and family matters have on their own individual political beliefs.
  Many of the dilemmas and personal dramas of the main characters are solved and, despite they know the price they have to pay is tremendously high even before they see their demands attended, they have a compromise with a single goal, strengthened by the unity of the group, and they manage to do it.
  It was under that strength and commitment that the first steps towards the peace process in Ireland were taken.