The Hearing (2009)

On 10th May 2008 Jimmy Mizen was killed at his local London bakery. This documentary takes us into The Mizens' home during the period of the trial of Jake Fahri, 19, accused of murdering their son on the day after his 16th birthday. We are there when they eat their breakfast, we are there when they take the children to school. We receive their friends with them, and we are with them when they leave the court each day and when they head home to reflect on the day's events. This is a film about life and death. Anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one will feel connect to it. But more than that, anyone who loves their children, or who worries about bullying at school, or who wants to be safe on their streets, will be impacted by the emotion that will emerge in the Mizen household during these few Spring weeks. What is grief? How can I deal will such intense feelings? Will there be a satisfactory ending to all this, and what if there is not? How can life go on when everything falls apart? Naturally, bigger questions arise. What does justice mean in a case like this? Should a teenage criminal get a second chance at normal? Does it make sense for the mother of a 16 year old boy to forgive the man who slit his throat with a shard of broken glass just a few hundred yards from her home?