'I'M DISGUSTED'
What is the James Bulger film Detainment, was it nominated for an Oscar and what has Denise Fergus said about it?
A NEW short film about the murder of James Bulger and subsequent questioning of his killers has been shortlisted for an Oscar for best Live Action Short Film.
Director Vincent Lambe has admitted that he did not inform the murdered tot's mum Denise Fergus or his dad Ralph Bulger about his film Detainment. Here's what we know.
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What is Detainment about?
Detainment is a 30-minute-long short film about the detainment and questioning of James Bulger's murderers, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.
The drama is based on real police interviews with the child killers.
They were both 10 years old at the time.
In 1993 they led James, two, away from his mum in the New Strand shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside.
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They mercilessly tortured the innocent tot, leaving his body on a railway track.
Director Vincent Lambe said he wanted to "humanise" the killers.
He said: "A lot of people might feel it’s wrong to humanise those boys but I think if people can’t accept the fact that they were human beings they will never be able to begin to understand.
“And the only way to prevent something like this happening again in the future is to understand the cause of it.”
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Is Detainment up for an Oscar?
Detainment has been shortlisted for an Academy Award.
Film-maker Vincent Lambe — who thought it was a joke when he heard his 30-minute film was up for an Oscar — believes the 1993 horror is still shocking to people 25 years later.
The 30-minute film has been shortlisted in the Live Action Short Film category.
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What has Denise Bulger said about the Oscar nomination?
James Bulger's mum Denise said she was "disgusted" that a film about her son's brutal murder has now been nominated for an Oscar.
She tweeted after the announcement: "I cannot express how disgusted and upset I am at this so called film that has been made and now nominated for an Oscar.
"It's one thing making a film like this without contacting or getting permission from James' family but another to have a child reenact the final hours of James' life before he was brutally murdered and making myself and my family have to relive this all over again!
"After everything I've said about this so called film and asking for it to be removed, it's still been nominated for an Oscar even though over 90,000 people have signed a petition which has now been ignored, just like my feelings, by the Academy.
"I'm so angry and upset at this present time. I personally want to thank everyone that has signed the petition up to now and hopefully carry on supporting me in this,
"I just hope this film doesn't win in its category in the Oscars."
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What has Ralph Bulger said about the film?
James Bulger's dad Ralph slammed the "offensive" new film after it received an Oscar nudge.
He said Detainment producers didn't even tell his family about the film and branded it too sympathetic towards the two-year-old's killers.
The 52-year-old said: “It has been 26 years since my son was taken and murdered and so I have seen many documentaries and news stories about him.
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“But I have never been so cut up and offended by something that shows so little compassion to James and his family.
“I accept this is a murder of such magnitude it will always be written about and featured in the news but to make a film so sympathetic to James’s killers is devastating."
The movie caused further misery for mum Denise after she was left sobbing after watching a November 2018 Channel 5 documentary on her two-year-old son's horrific murder.
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