Director: Steve McQueen
Writers: Enda Walsh, Steve McQueen
Stars: Stuart Graham, Laine Megaw and Brian Milligan
The film opens with prison officer Raymond Lohan (played by Stuart Graham) preparing to leave for work; checking under his car for bombs, putting on his uniform in the locker room ignoring the camaraderie of his colleagues. There are short clips of Lohan at various points throughout the day and it is shown that his knuckles are bloodied and cut.
Davey Gillen, a new IRA prisoner arrives and is shown being categorised as a "non-conforming prisoner" for his refusal to wear the prison uniform. He is sent to the cell naked with only a blanket. He arrives at his cell where his cellmate, Gerry (Liam McMahon), has smeared the walls with faeces from floor to ceiling. The two men get to know each other and we see them living within the cell, and a visit by family members where we see Sands speak with his parents and the other inmates and their visitors passing messages across tables and through mouths. Gerry's girlfriend sneaks a radio in by wrapping it and keeping it in her vagina.
The prison regime is depicted with the prison officers forcibly and violently removing the prisoners from their cells and beating them before pinning them down and using scissors to brutally cut their long hair and beards, grown as part of their no wash protest. The prisoners resist Sands spiting into Lohan's face, who responds by punching him in the face and then swings again, only to miss and punch the wall, causing his knuckles to bleed. He cuts Sands' hair and beard, the men throw him in the bath tub and scrub him clean before hauling him away again. Lohan is then seen smoking a cigarette, as in the opening scenes, his hand bloodied.
Later, the prisoners are taken out of their cells and given 2nd hand especially garish civilian clothing. The guards are seen snickering as they are handed to the prisoners who respond, after Sands' initial action, by tearing up the clothes and wrecking their cells. For the next interaction with the prisoners a large number of riot officers are seen coming into the prison on a truck. They line up and beat their batons against their shields and scream to scare the prisoners, who are hauled from their cells, then thrown in between the lines of riot police where they are beaten with the batons by at least 10 men at one time. Lohan and several of his colleagues then probe first their anuses and then their mouths, using the same pair of latex gloves for each man. One prisoner head-butts a guard and is beaten brutally by a riot officer. One of the riot officers is seen crying while his colleagues, on the other side of the wall, brutally beat the prisoners with their batons.
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