Shooting Magpies (2005)
Shot on digital video, the final feature drama in the coalfield trilogy explores the impact of heroin in East Durham after pit closure.
The film grew out of two Coalfield Stories works, Peter Fryer’s Fathers and a participative video and photography project with a teenage mothers group, which had produced the peer education video We Did It Together – So Why Do I Feel So Alone? It drew on the real lives of Emma Dowson and Barry Gough, who took on the lead roles. The Scar, the first film in the coalfield trilogy, had explored women’s lives after pit closure; Like Father, the second film, had explored male experience.
Amber Films, 80 mins, 2005
Watch an excerpt
