The 8th

Documentary

Jan 31

THE 8TH

The 8th traces Ireland’s campaign to remove the 8th Amendment, a constitutional ban on abortion. It traces the nation's transition from a conservative state heavily influenced by the Catholic Church to a more liberal, secular society.

An urgent narrative, a cautionary tale, and a roadmap for progressive reforms in an era of rising authoritarianism, The 8TH shows a country forging a new progressive path when reproductive rights are threatened worldwide.

Year: 2020

Project Type: Documentary

Evoke’s Role: The 8th is a program-related investment of Evoke Media.

Meet the filmmakers

Director/Producer
Aideen Kane is a nonfiction content producer and executive with 25+ years of experience producing award-winning documentaries. She is currently Vice President of Production at Little Monster Films. Prior to that, she was VP of Production for Fork Films where she shepherded all content from development through distribution. Aideen recently produced The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales (dir. Abigail Disney & Kathleen Hughes). She co-produced Women in Blue with Beth Levison and produced and co-directed The 8th, the story of how Ireland overturned one of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws. Previous credits include award winning documentaries and series including The Armor of Light (dir. Abigail Disney & Kathleen Hughes), the landmark PBS Women War and Peace Series II, The Trials of Spring (dir. Gini Reticker), and The Awful Truth series for Channel 4 (dir. Michael Moore), among others.
Director/Producer
Lucy Kennedy is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. She directed four episodes of the Netflix investigative documentary series Rotten including Lawyers, Guns & Honey and The Avocado Wars. She was the commissioning producer for three years of the Emmy-award-winning investigative series, Fault Lines on Al Jazeera. Over that period she directed and commissioned for the series; directing credits include Death on the Bakken Shale, One Day in Charkh and American Sheriff. Other work includes Explorer (National Geographic), Frontline (PBS), Need to Know & Wide Angle (WNET) & Prime Time (RTE). She is a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
Director/Producer/Editor
Maeve O’Boyle is an Emmy-award winning editor and producer. She edited The Education of Mohammad Hussein (HBO), which was shortlisted for an Academy Award. She co-produced and edited the Emmy-award-winning and 2014 IRE Award winning, Firestone and the Warlord (PBS). She also edited and co-produced Growing Up Trans (PBS), which won a DuPont Columbia award and co-wrote and edited Do I Sound Gay?, which premiered at TIFF and was awarded the runner up for People’s Choice Award. Other work includes Left of the Dial (HBO), Heat (PBS), 112 Weddings (HBO & BBC) and The Kids Grow Up (HBO), which premiered at IDFA and Full Frame and was awarded a special Jury prize at AFI Docs. She is currently co-directing and editing a feature documentary on the folk singer Joan Baez.
Producer
Alan Maher is a partner in Cowtown Pictures and his recent feature film Rialto, written by Mark O’Halloran and directed by Peter Mackie Burns, premiered in the Orizzonti Competition of the Venice Film Festival in 2019 and will be released internationally in 2020. Alan’s other recent productions include: Tom Burke’s feature documentary Losing Alaska; Pat Collins’ feature film Song of Granite; and Maya Zinshtein’s Emmy Award winning feature documentary Forever Pure. Current productions include Songs For While I’m Away a feature documentary on Phil Lynott by Emmy Award winner Emer Reynolds.