“Death or Liberty”

Bás nó Saoirse (2015):

The docudrama (in two parts) will be screened in Eire on 6 and 13 October.  A screening of both parts (with a panel discussion, as part of Parliament Week) will be at the People’s History Museum, London, on 19 November.  Australian broadcasting dates have yet to be announced.  A shorter “Death or Liberty” will be screened on ABC1 on 5 January Sunday, 24 January, 2016 at 10:00 pm (see updates III and IV) Thursday, 14 January at 9.33 pm.
Many scenes were filmed in Tasmania and I was an (uncredited and unpaid) extra in a few:

UPDATE I (15 September):  Another trailer:

UPDATE II:  The BoFA festival has announced that it will feature the world premiere of Death or Liberty on 5 November in Launceston.  (A strange world premiere that would be of a documentary which had already been broadcast on television.)  In The Mercury, Kane Young—being a modern sort of journalist who, seemingly, cannot distinguish between journalism and rewriting media releases—not only agrees that the screening in Launceston will be the world premiere, and neglects to mention a co-director, but also gets the date wrong; he writes:

BOFA’s five-day program […] kicks off on November 4 with the world premiere of new Tasmanian film Death or Liberty, directed by Steve Thomas.

The documentary is co-directed by Keith Farrell and Steve Thomas.

UPDATE III (18 September):  co-director Steve Thomas kindly explained that there are now three versions of Death or Liberty:  the version which will be broadcast in two parts (of 50 minutes each) on Irish and Welsh television; the abbreviated film version of 80 minutes which will be screened at the BoFA festival; and an even more attenuated version of 57 minutes which is all that the ABC would accept.  (The longest version, in two 50 minutes parts, has itself two variants:  the English and the Irish.)

UPDATE IV (5 October):  the Australian version of Death or Liberty will be screened on ABC 1 on 5 January, 2016, at a time yet to be announced on Sunday, 24 January, 2016 at 10:00 pm Thursday, 14 January at 9.33 pm.

UPDATE V (7 October):   from the broadcast by TG4 this morning (our time) of the first part of Bás nó Saoirse, I pull a coal-cart; I follow and then precede Llion Williams as Zephaniah Williams; I also listen to John Xintavelonis as Sir John Franklin admonish Zachary Lennon as Linus Miller:

UPDATE VI (14 October):   from the broadcast by TG4 this morning (our time) of the second part of Bás nó Saoirse:

UPDATE VI (27 October):  Death or Liberty will be shewn at Melbourne’s Sun Theatre on 29 and 31 October and on 3 November.

UPDATE VII (3 November):  I asked the director of the BoFA festival why it still calls its screening of Death or Liberty this Thursday as the “world premiere” since the film has now been screened elsewhere; he kindly responded, writing (inter alia): 

We are the World Festival Premiere. We’ve changed that on our website.

UPDATE VIII (3 November):  recently, on ABC Radio National, Micheal Cathcart discussed Death or Liberty with Steve Thomas, Dr. Tony Moore and Mick Thomas; you can listen to “Death or Liberty: Australia’s rebels and radicals on Books and Arts”:

A new documentary film by Steve Thomas [and Keith Farrell] tells the story of the rebels and radicals transported to Australia as political prisoners during the convict era.

UPDATE IX (11 January, 2016):  ABC TV (with no one within that vast organisation, apparently, who knows not to capitalise conjuctions) has announced a new time for screening the shortest version of Death or Liberty:

A stirring lyrical journey into the heroic lives of the Empire’s rebels exiled to Australia – the prison without walls.  They were martyrs to the cause in their homelands but their convict lives are an amazing untold story – until now.