"The Bloody Sunday film was shown at the Flanders Film Festival in Ghent. I had the pleasure of attending this showing and of observing the audience as they arrived at the theatre. I was particularly impressed with the number of young people who attended this showing. There are important lessons to be learned from "Bloody Sunday" from an international prespective. I feel that young people in many countries shoudl look at conflict resolution from the lessons to be learned from Bloody Sunday.
I am most grateful to the Belgian distributor of Bloody Sunday for buying this film. I am anxious to have it seen by as wide an audience as possible. It is a film about a day which I beleive changed the course of Irish history. It is also a film about the failure of a democratic western government to accept responsibility for the illegal actions of its army.
The film was made by a British director and produced by another Briton. It has been made with great integrity and I commend it tot the people of Belgium. I understand that the film will be on release from January next and it is my hope that many thousands of you will do so.
I have greatly enjoyed my visit to Ghent to the Film Festival. I want to thank all who have contributed to making me feel welcome."

Ivan Cooper