Flight 103 Film Traces Bombing That Claimed Life of Theo Cohen

ATLANTIC CITY – The film about Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, and features a Court House couple who lost their daughter in the explosion, will have its state premier April 2 at the Resorts Casino Hotel. The hotel is hosting the New Jersey State Film Festival.
Written and directed by Phil Furey, the 84-minute feature documentary is called “SINCE: The Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.” The film traces the 1988 bombing of Flight 103, killing 270 people.
Susan and Daniel Cohen, Court House, lost their daughter, Theo, in the explosion. She was a junior at Syracuse University (SU) who was studying abroad in London. She and 34 other SU students, returning home for the holidays, were among the victims.
Since debuting last year, the film has garnered a number of awards at various film festivals including:
– Best documentary jury award winner and audience choice award at the Green Bay, Wis., film festival
– Jury award winner for best documentary feature film at the Durango, Colo., Independent Film Festival
– Jury award winner expose’ prize at the Chicago Peace on Earth Film Festival.
Furey said festivals have juries of filmmaking professionals for each category and decide which film in each category wins. There are separate awards determined by the audience through voting.
It also has been shown at film festivals in Austin, Texas; Napa Valley, Calif.; the Hamptons, N.Y.; Oklahoma and South Carolina.
“This is an incredibly important state for the film to premiere in because of the sheer number of people onboard Pan Am Flight 103 from New Jersey,” Furey said. “The very first meetings of the victims group occurred there, so it is a very appropriate homecoming.
“Not only were there several students, but entire families as well as business men and women onboard,” he added. “It is really important for me to be able to bring this film as close to these people as possible, because not only is there an obvious audience to see it, but it could give the chance for the public to interact with them personally, which doesn’t happen often.”
After the screening, Furey will do a question-and-answer session with Bob and Eileen Monetti, Cherry Hill, who lost their son, Rick, in the bombing.
“Although they didn’t participate in SINCE, I want to highlight the stories of as many victims as possible, so I’ve asked them to join me on stage,” Furey noted. “This way the public can get to see some more of the people who were lost and lives affected.”
Furey said the Cohens will not be attending the premiere.
“Terrorism is one of the biggest problems facing humanity today,” according to a Facebook page about the film. “But the families of the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103 have lived with it for decades. Bound together by tragedy when a bomb ripped the New York-bound 747 jumbo jet into pieces over Lockerbie, Scotland, just before Christmas in 1988, the Flight 103 families faced one traumatic injustice after another.
“From the early days when an unprepared U.S. government left the relatives to fend for themselves against a greedy, once-iconic airline, to the modern era, when the only man convicted of the crime was set free in a back-door oil deal with Libya’s murderous dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the families refused to go down without a fight, harnessing the power of the media in their war for truth and justice,” the Facebook description continues. “SINCE: The Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 is a feature documentary that tells the story of some of these first victims of terrorism, who proved that ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary feats in the wake of politically fueled mass murder.”
Tickets can be obtained at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2488787
To contact Karen Knight, email kknight@cmcherald.com.