The documentary Gervase, directed by Mike Peel Regent’s Lecturer, has been selected to play at the Southampton International Film Festival, where it has also been nominated for ‘Best editing in a documentary’.
The nomination is the film’s fourth so far – the other accolades include:
- Silver award winner, Spotlight Documentary Film Awards 2020
- Finalist, New York International Film Awards 2020
- Semi-Finalist, Hitchcock Film Awards 2020
- Semi-Finalist, Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival 2020
The winners will be announced later this month at the Southampton International Film Festival.
Mike Peel, the film's director and producer, completed Gervase earlier this year as part of his research by creative practice. The film was co-produced by two other Regent’s academics, Ted Wilkes and Tristan Tull.
Mike said that: 'it’s wonderful to be nominated for awards like this, especially for a feature and a project that is so personal.
'There are so many aspects of the production that can come into the class – the expertise in its making and the contacts you make – the knowledge can all be shared with our students. It’s great to be able to talk to students about a project that is now being shown at international film festivals.'
About the film
Gervase, a documentary, tells the incredible and moving story of Michael ‘Gervase’ Peel, a World War II bomber pilot who, at just 21 years of age, was shot down behind enemy lines, jumped from a burning aircraft and travelled on foot across Nazi-occupied territory. He was eventually captured and became a POW.
His story is pieced together through interviews, spanning nearly 35 years, as he recounts his own life and comes to term with having bombed civilians, witnessed the horrors of war first hand, his personal struggles with dementia ('forgettery', as he called it) and post-traumatic stress.
Profoundly relevant today, commenting on both the ethics of aircraft bombing and the gradual loss of the last WWII veterans.
Mike Peel commented: 'In a way, this film was 90 years in the making, but some of themes it covers are relevant even today, with conflicts and war still taking place around the world. The ethics of bombing and civilian casualty are sadly issues we still deal with.'
The film utilises new interviews, home movies and WWII archive material from the Imperial War Museums film archive.
Behind the scenes
