No Fire Zone app and film free to download

12 September 2013

“It is vitally important that this feature reaches the widest possible audience” - Empire

“A Tour de Force by Nobel Prize nominee Macrae” - Movies that Matter

No Fire Zone app - including interactive version of the entire feature length film – is available free to download, less than a week after its world premiere in London. 

Critically acclaimed feature length film, No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, is a forensic investigation into the final weeks of the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka. 

This accompanying app may prove a game changer for hard-hitting investigative documentaries as it features not only the entire linear film, but also allows the users to delve deeper into the subject of the Sri Lankan civil war.  

While watching the film, app users will be encouraged to interact with the rich content including news reports; United Nations and Red Cross reports and analysis of the atrocities; a timeline chartering key events from 1956 to the present day; biographies, location maps; video from key contributors and film makers; and live links to the latest opinions, online content and further reading.

The app is free to download for iPad users at:  https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/no-fire-zone-sri-lankas-killing/id690010171?mt=8

It was commissioned by Channel 4 and built by London based award-winning digital production company The Project Factory.   An Android version will be released soon, and although the App is UK-only on launch, it will soon be available worldwide for free.

Channel 4’s New Media Commissioning Editor, Vicky Taylor says:  “We are very excited about this new way of displaying feature length documentaries which allow the user to not only watch  the film but to find out so much more about the subject.  We hope this could become a new platform for fans of documentaries and current affairs.” 

About The Film 

Watch the trailer: http://nofirezone.org/trailer

In 2009, following a 26 year civil war, the government of Sri Lanka launched a major offensive against the rebel forces of the Tamil Tigers or LTTE. 

It was supposed to be a war without witness.  But there were witnesses and they filmed the appalling events as they unfolded. These witnesses included victims and government soldiers themselves.  

No Fire Zone represents the culmination of three years of journalistic investigation and contains deeply disturbing new evidence, powerful eyewitness testimony and compelling personal stories of survival in a war zone - including eyewitness interviews from: Vany Viji, a Tamil civilian, Benjamin Dix, a former UN worker, Sir John Holmes, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary, UK and Peter Mckay, former staffer UNOPS, with a title soundtrack by Tamil singer, M.I.A.

Carefully evidenced and powerfully measured, the film uses eyewitness accounts, expert opinion, and translated mobile phone and camera footage from both the victims and the perpetrators of violence. This footage enables the filmmakers, in a way almost never done before, to piece together the day-to-day horror of this war.

Viscerally powerful actuality from the battlefield, from inside the crudely dug civilian bunkers and from over-crowded makeshift hospitals, records evidence of war crimes, summary execution, torture and sexual violence. The film also addresses the culpability of the Tamil Tigers, themselves responsible for committing war crimes and for preventing civilians from trying to escape the carnage.

Since 2009 there has been no independent judicial investigation into what happened and the Government of Sri Lanka continues to say the video evidence of war crimes is faked.

The film will be distributed internationally via Cinephil (The Gatekeepers / The Act of Killing) and on VOD via Distrify's (I am Breathing) new social media software maximising the global audience for the film. 

 

Note to Editors

Website:  http://nofirezone.org

Download the No Fire Zone App:  https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/no-fire-zone-sri-lankas-killing/id690010171?mt=8

The Project Factory an award-winning digital production company that creates transmedia entertainment across web, mobile, social media and games platforms. 

 

No Fire Zone has been selected by the following festivals:

Official Selection: Addis International Film Festival 2013

Official Selection: Movies that Matter 2013

Official Selection: Sheffield Doc/Fest 2013

Official Selection: FIFDH Geneva 2013

Official Selection: Festival Internacional de Cine de Derechos Humanos 2013

Official Selection:  Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival 2013

Official Selection:  Freedom Film Festival Malaysia 2013

Official Selection:  Oslo International Films from the South Festival 2013

Official Selection:  Festival des Liberties 2013

Official Selection:  Festival International du Film Insulaire de Groix 2013

Official Selection:  Tri-Continental Film Festival 2013

Official Selection:  Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival 2013

Official Selection:  CineMigrante International Film Festival 2013

Official Selection: Film SouthAsia 2013

 

What the press said about No Fire Zone: 

“It is vitally important that this feature reaches the widest possible audience”  Empire

“A Tour de Force by Nobel Prize nominee Macrae”  Movies that Matter

 "Haunting, disturbing…unforgettable… not since John Pilger’s 1979 Year Zero has there been a documentary as important"  Right Now, Australia

"No Fire Zone shocks on every level.  It shocks, it educates and it convinces"  The London Film Review

"I can confidently say that No Fire Zone ... is the most devastating film I have seen"  Wendy Bacon, Hoopla, Australia

“Dark & disturbing…. a hair-raising documentary”  The Hindustan Times

“An utterly convincing documentary”  Globe and Mail, Toronto

“Will break your heart… incredibly graphic and very hard to watch, but that’s the best way to get people to act”  Toronto Film Scene

“Images sufficiently graphic to give you nightmares – but sometimes it takes a nightmare to wake us up” Now Magazine, Canada