A Mapping Experiment of Belfast Films: The Mighty Celt and Belfast Girls

Abstract

This study aims to show how the act of mapping could contribute to our existing knowledge about cities. Mapping has long been used as a tool for understanding physical space. Lately, scholars also used it as a method of examining the places on the screen. Belfast, a city in which a profound sectarian dispute exists, has become the setting of many conflict-themed films. This research claims that mapping film locations in Belfast could provide an archive to examine the transformation of urban texture and architecture. Analysis of the city image in two films, The Mighty Celt (2005) and Belfast Girls (2006), could help to reveal the physical change of the city from different perspectives. In the first one, Belfast is a hostile background experienced from the eyes of a young boy, while the second one documents the life of two girls from diverse backgrounds, a Protestant and a Catholic. Both films are set in Northern Ireland during the post-Trouble period, during which the division between the two groups persisted. These films make a contemporary portrait of Belfast as a divided city where armed conflicts have ended, but physical segregation remains. By analysing these two narratives, the study will try to interpret the complex urban conditions in Belfast at the beginning of the century.