Tin City

We see clips of what looks like fragments of found footage from a dystopian, imagined town. Disembodied mannequin heads turn menacingly on a system of turntables. A bar, a bank, a shop – each location reveals another iteration of the same macabre set-up. Against this backdrop, a German television news program investigates. The secret nature of the site, located in a remote forest in northwest Germany, is revealed: it is an urban combat facility called “Tin City,” created by the British army to train its soldiers for foreign wars. The murder of the German wife of a British soldier sparks more media interest in this facility. An interview between a journalist and a spokesperson for the Irish underground terror organization – the IRA – informs us about why the Northern Ireland “Troubles” have come to mainland Europe.

Feargal Ward is a filmmaker and artist from Ireland. His practice is largely concerned with the hybrid-documentary form, where tropes and devices from narrative cinema are often appropriated or subverted in an attempt to facilitate the telling of greater truths. His feature documentary The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid (2017) premiered in the main competition at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and screened at multiple festivals worldwide before being broadcast on German, Irish, and Finnish television. His debut feature documentary Yximalloo (co-directed with Tadhg O’Sullivan, 2014) premiered at FIDMarseille, where it won the Prix Premier.

Director Feargal Ward. Editing Feargal Ward. Producer Feargal Ward. Production company FSE films (Kilcock, Ireland).

Films: 2014: Yximalloo (with Tadhg O’Sullivan, 75 min). 2017: The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid (79 min). 2019: Tension Structures (with Adrian Duncan, 64 min). 2024: Tin City.

The screening dates for TIN CITY on berlinale.de