Earlier this month, COCO Television proudly premiered ‘The 34th - The Story of Marriage Equality’ at the 25th GAZE International LGBT Film Festival in Dublin.
‘The 34th’ is a documentary film that tells the story of the driven and dedicated bunch of people who formed Marriage Equality in Ireland, and developed it into a highly effective grassroots force with one clear goal in mind - the extension of Civil Marriage to same sex couples.
Through revealing interviews and archive material, former board members and staff outline the strategising, fierce battles, sheer hard graft and personal cost of running such an all-consuming campaign.
From the KAL (Katherine & Ann Louise) case to a YES vote on 22nd May 2015, the story spans a decade culminating in the 34th amendment to the Irish constitution, allowing same sex marriage.
The documentary opened the annual GAZE International LGBT Film Festival, which took place in Dublin’s Light House Cinema on Thursday, 3rd August 2017. The opening night was attended by high profile guests, such as Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone, T.D., and An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, T.D.
A hit with attendees on the night, the film later went on to pick up both the Audience Award, and the ‘Spirit of Gaze’ Award, which is awarded by the festival panel to the film that best captures the spirit of the festival.
The plaques now sit proudly on display in our reception area.
We’d like to extend a massive thank you to everyone for their support and for their help in putting the documentary together.
The documentary was produced and directed by our own Linda Cullen & Vanessa Gildea and edited by Cúán Mac Conghail. Patrick Jordan was the Director of Photography and Hugh Fox was on sound.