The Siege of Jadotville

The Siege of Jadotville is a 2016 action-war film directed by Richie Smyth and written by Kevin Brodbin. An Irish-South African production, the film is based on Declan Power's book, The Siege at Jadotville: The Irish Army's Forgotten Battle (2005), about an Irish Army unit's role in the titular Siege of Jadotville during the United Nations Operation in the Congo in September 1961, part of the Congo Crisis that stretched from 1960 to 1965. First screened at the 2016 Galway Film Festival, the film received a limited cinema distribution in Ireland in September 2016. It had simultaneous worldwide distribution on Netflix and in a number of US iPic Theaters during October 2016. It won three Irish Film & Television Awards, including Best Director. Plot The film opens with the execution of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the outbreak of civil war. As the mineral rich State of Katanga secedes under the leadership of Moise Tshombe, United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld assigns Conor Cruise O'Brien to head up a UN peacekeeping mission. Privately, Hammarskjöld tells O'Brien that the Katanga crisis could potentially trigger World War III and orders the Irish diplomat to take offensive action.