Film explores infamous Cork murder

A film examining the real life murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan Du Plantier in West Cork through the eyes of a fictional jury is in cinemas now.

‘Re-Creation’ is the latest film from Irish Oscar winning director Jim Sheridan, a film about justice — not just the kind delivered in courts, but the kind shaped by personal experience, unconscious bias, and emotion.

The film takes the audience into a jury room where 12 fictional jurors are gathered to examine the real case files in the 1996 West Cork murder of Sophie Toscan Du Plantier.

These include official police reports, forensic data, and just some of the investigative transcripts that exist around the case. The jurors bring their own histories into the room. Some carry trauma, others prejudice. As they begin to examine the evidence more closely — and each other — the audience sees how quickly assumptions take root, and how hard it can be to challenge them.

The dramatisation follows what might have happened in a jury room should the entire body of evidence have been made accessible, presenting difficult and inconvenient questions around the highly controversial case that made global headlines. It explores whether any justice has been served in the killing of Sophie Toscan Du Plantier, and questions whether a wrongly accused man spent a lifetime vilified and maligned by authorities, media, and the public alike. What remains is the terrifying prospect that a vicious killer continues to enjoy their freedom 28 years on.

‘Re-Creation’, and the evidence that comes to light in it, ultimately leaves viewers to make up their own minds.

Directed by Jim Sheridan and David Merriman, ‘Re-Creation’ stars Vicky Krieps, Jim Sheridan, Aidan Gillen, John Connors, and Colm Meaney as Ian Bailey.

Sheridan said: “I made ‘Re-Creation’ because I was determined to follow the story wherever it led me from West Cork to Paris. It is vital to not be afraid to look at the truth, to value the living and the dead.”

Merriman added: “I felt driven to make ‘Re-Creation’ to dispel the myths around the case that, in my opinion, have left one person wrongly accused, a killer on the loose for the last 28 years and, most importantly, no justice for Sophie Toscan Du Plantier.”

The film is now showing at Cork Omniplex in Mahon Point.