Alison Millar
Directing
Biography
A BAFTA, IFTA, RTS and Prix Italia winner, Alison Millar is one of the UK and Ireland's most respected documentary film-makers and the founder of Erica Starling Productions Ltd, an independent documentary production company in Belfast. She is a regular filmmaker for the Channel 4 investigative documentary series Dispatches, but she actually began her career in front of the cameras, co-presenting the legendary arts and crafts series for children, Hartbeat, with Tony Hart in the 1980s.
Known For

Exposure is a current affairs strand, broadcast in the United Kingdom on the ITV network. The programme brings together six films made by different producers exploring and investigating foreign and domestic topics, reporting on issues and telling human stories. The series was commissioned for ITV by Peter Fincham, ITV Director of Television and is a sister show to year-round current affairs strand Tonight. It made its debut on Monday 26 September 2011 - airing at 22.35, directly after ITV News at Ten.
ITV Exposure

May 1977. Undercover British army Captain Robert Nairac is abducted and killed by the IRA - his body secretly buried. Decades on, a former enemy searches for his remains.
The Disappearance of Captain Nairac

An emotive, intimate film on the life and death of acclaimed young Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee, whose murder by the New IRA in April 2019 sent shockwaves across the world. Directed by her close friend Alison Millar, the film seeks answers to her senseless killing through Lyra’s own work and words.
Lyra

Ike White was a musical prodigy who recorded a funk and soul classic album inside a Californian prison in 1974. Then he disappeared. 30 years later, director Dan Vernon tracked him down, only to find a trail of wives, lives and false identities that leave as many questions as answers.
The Changin' Times of Ike White

The story of how surgeon Ian Paterson duped his patients into believing they had cancer and performed unnecessary surgeries on them before he was caught and jailed for 20 years.
Bodies of Evidence: The Butcher Surgeon

An investigation into the victims killed and secretly buried by the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The Disappeared

On 27 August 1979, Lord Mountbatten, great uncle to Prince Charles, was blown up at sea by the IRA off the west coast of the Republic of Ireland. Three others were killed on the boat that day, including two teenage boys. Later that afternoon, in a second strike, the IRA killed 18 British soldiers, across the border in Northern Ireland. Forty years on, this is the story of that remarkable Bank Holiday Monday – movingly told by those directly affected by it.
The Day Mountbatten Died
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When the Rapping Stops

In 2008 Alison Millar spent a year filming the marching bands of the Shankill Road. Amongst the men she follows is Jordan, an eleven-year old aspiring drummer.
The Men Who Won't Stop Marching
Film-maker Alison Millar spent a year behind the scenes with the ladies of the Loyal Orange Lodges of Ireland. Given unprecedented access, her film reveals for the first time the private rituals and ceremonies of this secretive organisation.
Sisters of the Lodge

Ardal O'Hanlon looks at what started the showband era in Ireland, the people involved, and how it came to an end in the 1980s.
Showbands: How Ireland Learned to Party

From 9- to 90-year-olds, the people of a County Antrim village help Bafta award-winning director Alison Millar explore the real meaning of creativity and culture.Returning to the landscape of her childhood, she uncovers the story of a visionary teacher, and celebrates the extraordinary artwork and writing created by poor country children almost a century ago.Against the backdrop of her home village of Cullybackey and the surrounding countryside, the story unfolds across the seasons as Alison follows the 'Carryin' Stream' of memory from the small country school that her father attended in the 1940s to the children of the present day. Along the way, she connects with a cultural legacy that she has never really known about and learns about her own Ulster-Scots heritage.
A Carryin' Stream

Documentary about Father Michael Cleary, an unlikely superstar of the Irish Catholic Church who had his own TV chatshow and two hit albums to his credit. He was the man who could seemingly do no wrong, but a year after his death a shocking truth emerged about his private life that would rock the Church to its foundations and leave his family's life in tatters. Alison Millar, who met with Cleary as a young film student, revisits her archive to discover the truth about the 'real Father Ted'.
The Father, the Son and the Housekeeper
Documentary in which Alison Millar sets out to unearth the secrets behind the mystery of Shergar's disappearance in 1983, at the height of the Troubles