STEPHEN Rea launched Ireland's first international human rights film festival in west Belfast this week with an impassioned plea for people on the island to protect the rights of all. But the Oscar-nominated actor also took aim at the Republic's Reception and Integration Agency's use of 'Direct Provision', its accommodation service for asylum seekers and refugees, describing it as a form of "internment" and "torture" for those still caught up in it years after their arrival in the state.
The hard-hitting message from the softly spoken Belfast native was well received by the audience at the double launch in Cultúrlann MacAdam Ó Fiaich of Féile an Earraigh – Féile an Phobail's springtime trad-centred festival – and the inaugural Respect Human Rights Film Festival, whose programme was unveiled.
Seventy-year-old Rea has long been involved with human rights issues and has just become patron of the latter. He spoke with some pride that his home town took the lead in hosting the first international human rights film festival on the island which has refugees as its theme.
Prominent on TV screens last year in BBC drama Dickensian and the Beeb's big-budget adaptation of War and Peace, Rea recalled how the port of Belfast was the only port in Ireland or Britain that refused to allow slave ships from Africa to dock several hundred years ago. He told the audience that the Respect festival was "desperately needed".
"We have people around the world need help. I've personally done a lot of work with Direct Provision, which is a form of internment for people who arrive here and who are given €19 a week. They are kept in camps which are separate from each other. I know one girl where it's been seven and a half years and there's been no change in her condition.
"It's torture and it's essentially happening on this island. She can't come here, across the border, because if she did she would be sent back to Malawi where she came from. It's terrible to think that Irish people are involved in this.
"There is a tradition [in Belfast] of supporting other people's rights and that's what we in the privileged west must do."
He told The Irish News: "I believe that if you aren't a citizen, then I can't be a citizen."
In March the actor is heading to the United States to film a new drama series, while next year he will be in a new film called Black 47, a tale of a man's fight to save his family during the Great Famine, he said.
Respect director Séan Murray said he had no trouble securing Rea's patronage of the festival which is to become an annual cultural event.
"I knew that Stephen had involvement in human rights issues but I didn't realise he was so involved. He has a lot of compassion, and I've seen that in the work that he's done."
Féile director Kevin Gamble promised a packed programme of music, events, talks, screenings in west Belfast and across the city between Féile An Earraigh with its "biggest programme in its 13-year history", running from March 10 -18, and Respect, running from March 3-8.
A strong line-up of traditional Irish music will be available in the Gaeltacht Quarter during Féile along with a special event run with Translink, Music on the Metro, from March 15 -17 to cover St Patrick's Day.
Respect kicks off in An Culturlann on March 3 with A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake, a film inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa; it closes on March 8, International Women's Day, with the screening of Prison Sisters, a film about two young women who have been released from prison in Afghanistan.
:: For festival programmes and tickets, visit www.feilebelfast.com and http://www.respectfilmfest.com
