The 2019 Academy Awards are set for February 24, and controversy is abounding concerning “Detainment,” the narrative drama up for Best Live Action Short Film, and its director Vincent Lambe. The shirt started making headlines once it was chosen as an Oscar nominee, with people demanding it is pulled from the running.
“Detainment” centers around the 1993 murder of toddler James Bulger by two 10-year-old boys in Liverpool. Many, including the James Bulger’s family who was not consulted about the movie, are horrified and outraged at the way the director handled the sensitive subject. Petitions are being signed to remove the film from the Oscar race, and many networks and cinemas in the U.K. and Ireland have yet to confirm the screening. Lambe, however, stands by his work.
In an interview with Variety, the Irish director said “I do think there was an honest purpose behind the film. I think it’s a very important film for people to see. It’s entirely factual. It’s not meant as a piece of entertainment, but if it goes even a small step to [effect] social change, I think it will have been worth making.”
Mostly, the outcry from the public and the family came from the way Lambe portrays the 10-year-old boys in the film, how it humanizes them. In response, Lambe defends the way the movie, “shows them as they were as two 10-year-old boys and human beings, and if people can’t accept the fact they were human beings, they’ll never begin to understand what could have led these 10-year-old boys to commit such a crime.”
When asked about the distress of the victim’s family, the filmmaker explained “I wanted to meet with them personally [afterward] to explain why we made the film and why we didn’t get in touch sooner. It’s because there’s more than one perspective on the case, and we wanted to make a film that was entirely factual. We didn’t want to be putting an opinion on it. For that reason, we decided not to meet with any of the families involved and rely solely on interview transcripts and factual material … I think it’s an important film, and if we were to withdraw it from the Oscars, it would defeat the whole purpose of making the film in the first place.”
While it is still unclear if “Detainment” will be made available for the U.K., as of this moment it is still up for the Academy Award short film category, which will air February 24, 2019.