The 8th documentary: 'Everywhere you looked there were women in tears'
The 8th is a documentary on the vote in Ireland in 2018 to remove the ban on abortion from the constitution.
Maeve O’Boyle can still vividly remember the emotional experience of being in Dublin Castle as the results of the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment came through.
It was the day after referendum day and while she was there to document the results, it was impressible not to be moved by what was unfolding around her.
“One of the most seminal moments of the whole thing from a perspective of being an Irish woman was when the results were announced,” she recalls. “Everybody was on the stage, and we were trying to film it but we were also just standing back as Irish women watching that moment in history happen. One of the interesting things was everywhere you looked there were women in tears. It definitely felt like it transcended, that moment, being about reproductive rights. It was about the value of women in Ireland. And it felt very, very moving at that point.”
The day itself and the times leading up to it are revisited in The 8th, a new feature documentary from O’Boyle and her co-directors Lucy Kennedy and Aideen Kane.
Focusing on voices and activists from within the debate, The 8th traces in detail Ireland’s campaign to remove the constitutional ban on abortion. It also examines the country’s social and political history in the decades leading up to the referendum.
The three filmmakers first discussed making a documentary when it became apparent that a referendum would likely be called. “We were very interested in the issue, we'd all been following it. We'd grown up in Ireland under the shadow of the eighth really. We'd witnessed this issue of women travelling, women in crisis pregnancies, our whole lives,” says O’Boyle.
“In terms of the production and the collaboration, three of us came at it with three different skills. Aideen is a very skilled producer, Lucy an investigative journalist, and I'm an editor and long form storyteller. We felt with three different skills we'd be able to wrestle with a subject this large.”
They came together to have a fully discuss the project in 2016, and following a year of research, started filming in 2017. People featured in the film include veteran campaigner Ailbhe Smyth and businesswoman and self-described glitter activist Andrea Horan.
“We did a year of research. We met activists, campaigners, lawyers, historians, academics, during that entire year, trying to figure out how to tell the story. We had many meetings with Ailbhe during that period, we knew that she was an incredibly central figure to this campaign, and also because she was in her 70s had this incredible vantage point to sift through Ireland in transformation.
“She is also extremely compassionate, articulate, and a wonderful person to bring you through as a protagonist in the film itself. I think what we were trying to document in the film was a collective movement of women all across Ireland, really trying to get this over the line. And that's what we focus on, mainly, as well as following our key protagonists.”
The documentary also features pro-life activists including the journalist Wendy Grace who outlines her perspective.
“The three of us came at the film from a pro choice perspective,” says O’Boyle. “We knew that the documentary would have a point of view, as any documentary does. However, we definitely wanted to include the no side, because we wanted to consider their perspective and balance out the storytelling. We also felt it was important to set the stakes for the yes side.
"Also in terms of Ireland's legacy on the difficulty around this issue, in order to understand how polarising this issue has been in Ireland, we wanted to consider both sides.”
O’Boyle is currently editing a documentary on music legend Joan Baez that she co-directed with Karen O’Connor and Miri Navasky. The documentary, currently at the editing stage, will focus on the artist’s final Fare Thee Well tour and also features detailed access to her archives for the first time.
“The special thing about the film is that she's opened up her archives, for the first time ever, fully. So there are incredible artwork and drawings, she’s a great artist as well as a great singer and activist. Also diaries and family stuff. It's really rich in terms of that side of her story.”
- The 8th will be available on IFI@home, Volta and breakoutpictures.com to mark the third anniversary of the referendum on May 25. It will launch on iTunes on May 31
