Bodyguard star narrates film of pioneering Scots film-maker
THE granddaughter of a man who captured his life on camera will tour cinemas across the country with a new documentary featuring his archive wartime footage – which has been narrated by actor Richard Madden.
Harry Birrell Presents: Films of Love & War features 400 films and personal diaries of the wartime years the amateur film-maker spent in Bombay, the jungles of Burma, leading a battalion of Gurkhas and in the mountains of Nepal.
The footage was uncovered by his granddaughter actress Carina Birrell who has teamed up with director Matt Pinder for the project which premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this year where it won an audience award.
Producer Carina will join director Matt at the Glasgow Film Theatre tomorrow to show the documentary and take part in a Q&A. The date is part of several across the country which also includes the Grosvener in Hillhead on November 6.
The 34-year-old, from Glasgow, said: “The documentary is very moving because it is a personal account of just a human experience of wartime years. He wasn’t an extraordinary person of fame or notoriety in any way. He was an ordinary man who found himself in this situation and he had the presence of mind to capture it so that people could benefit from understanding what that kind of life was like through the eyes of an ordinary person.”
Harry’s love affair with motion pictures began when he was gifted his first cine-camera as a boy in 1928 in Paisley. He spent his life recording incidents great and small, and his footage also includes home movies of family events.
Harry, who joined the army in the Second World War, built what was known as Scotland’s smallest cinema at his home in Giffnock in the 1950s.
He welcomed more than 3000 visitors to his home where he would show his own movies.
He died in 1993 aged 75 and this new documentary was completed on what would have been his 100 birthday.
Carina said: “He thought that he was never going to be professionally involved in the film industry because life had other plans.
“He created his own joy for film-making and the cinema, and shared it with family and friends.
“What was quite remarkable for me making the film was the early war stuff – which is some of his most extraordinary footage – was never really showed or shared with people after he came back from the war.
“What it would have taken to capture that behind enemy lines and he is still getting the camera out and documenting it.”
It was while working on another project that Matt Pinder unintentionally introduced actor Richard Madden to Harry’s diaries. The star was so impressed by the diaries that he agreed to record some narrative for a promo to pitch the project.
And despite his own career taking off thanks to roles in BBC hit series Bodyguard and Blockbuster movie Rocketman, Richard stuck by his word to narrate the documentary when it was eventually made and he even attended the Glasgow premiere earlier this year with his parents.
Carina said: “He sounds like Harry, he has got a wonderful voice and we wanted it to be local accent wise.
“I am really lucky because he really was the most wonderful voice for Harry, he’s just the right person for the job and I am grateful that he stayed involved despite his other commitments.”
It is hoped the documentary will be shown to international audiences but the focus for now is for a new generation to soak in archives of times gone by.
Carina said: “When you see audiences being moved or inspired or affected in some way by watching a film that’s the most rewarding thing so far and I hope that they continue to be moved.
“People seem to be having a really personal response to the film which is wonderful to see. They have got no connection to who he was but the humility and truth in which he captures everything is identifiable in a really human way.” The film shows at 5.45pm tomorrow.