In everyone’s lifetime, there is at least one high profile murder case that evokes public anger, hurt and a new level of disgust in the behaviour of human beings. None more so when the crime is against a child, add to that committed by children too and we are left horrified and questioning how could they do it?
Vincent Lambs new award-winning short film is about one of those cases. The UK premiere of Detainment was shown tonight, 9th November 2018 in the Winchester Discovery Centre as part of the annual Winchester Film Festival.
This short film is based on the interview transcripts and records of John Venables and Robert Thompson from the 1993 murder case of Jamie Bulger.
Vincent told the audience after the screening that ‘it is a tragedy for three families’. Once you remove the anger towards the two 10-year-olds who committed this heinous crime, there are two more sets of grieving parents left behind trying to make sense of what their sons have been capable of doing.
Through this film, Lamb made the point that he wanted to humanize the boys that committed this horrific crime. Nobody has attempted this before. Lamb was very clear that this was not to feel sympathy towards these two but to see them in the light of actually only being children too.
Lambs intention is not to distract audiences from the horrifying crime these two boys committed. Detainment is about tackling the raw truth about how these boys confessed to what they had done and the exceptional work carried out by the Merseyside police force.
David James Smith author of the book The Sleep of Reason attended the UK premiere and his parting words to Lamb after the screening was that this short film ‘deserves to be seen’.
Whether or not it will attract large viewing audiences remains to be seen. However, it is definitely going to be one of those controversial short films that most people will have strong feelings about this case and passionate emotive responses. Now into the 25th year anniversary is the nation still going to ‘demonise’ these two 10-year-old boys?
The film festival runs from 3rd to 10th November.
Tickets available from the box office winchesterfilmfestival.com
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