How 1970s Belfast was recreated on the streets of Sheffield for new film ‘71

On a rubble-strewn Belfast street a British soldier sprints after a child and relieves him of the rifle he has stolen in the mayhem of a riot. Seconds later he and a comrade are engulfed by a raging mob that punch and kick them to the ground as a young woman screams for mercy.

This is the brutal backdrop to ’71, an authentic portrait of the war known as The Troubles. The mayhem is orchestrated and choreographed. The soldiers and screaming rioters are actors and extras. The mood is one of realism, grit, tension and overwhelming sectarian hatred.

For debut director Yann Demange, watching on a monitor in a nearby alley crowded with crew and observers, the take lacks the requisite pace. “They came in too soon,” he says of the crowd of locals that floods onto the street to surround the squaddies. Under a blazing June sun the scene is re-set.

A frantic cat-and-mouse tale of survival over one long day, ’71 stars Jack O’Connell as Gary Hook, a young soldier straight out of basic training who expects to be posted to Germany. Instead he finds himself on an emergency deployment to Northern Ireland.

Within hours of arriving he is part of a unit sent to support a snatch squad as it makes an arrest. The situation rapidly escalates, a riot erupts and the soldiers are pulled out by their inexperienced officer. In the chaos and confusion of their withdrawal two men are left behind.

Written by Gregory Burke ’71 is the latest in a string of edgy, low-budget movies to emerge from Scots producer Angus Lamont and Sheffield-based Warp Films. For Demange, the French/Algerian best known for TV fare such as Dead Set, the script represents a series of challenges.

Not least is the milieu. The movie is set in a Belfast that no longer exists.

“It would probably be easier to make a Dickensian movie,” quips Demange during a lull in filming. “It’s been a challenge and a half finding terrace streets without uPVC windows. People don’t preserve the kind of period details we’re after.”

The production was stitched together on location across the north. The Divis Flats, a republican stronghold at the bottom of the Falls Road, were long ago demolished but were recreated within Sheffield’s Park Hill Flats during two weeks of night shooting. Leeds, Liverpool and Blackburn provided other key sites.

Screen Yorkshire was “a crucial part of the financing”, says producer Angus Lamont, adding that three weeks’ shooting in Sheffield and several days in Leeds (parts of which doubled as New Lodge) meant a large chunk of the production spend happened in Yorkshire.

For Screen Yorkshire it meant extending the on-going collaboration with “the extraordinary team” at Warp Films.

In the year since the film was shot it has picked up a significant head of steam on the festival circuit. Sally Joynson, chief executive at Screen Yorkshire, describes it as “home-grown drama at its very best”.

“It’s a real privilege for us to be involved in financing ’71. With outstanding performances, inspired direction, a script that grips the audience from the outset and some of Yorkshire’s extraordinarily diverse locations doubling for Northern Ireland it pulls no punches.”

“Park Hill was a very good double for the Divis Flats. It proved really invaluable,” agrees Lamont.

“Working a night shift is very disorientating. We were working and then going to bed and then going back to work. So we didn’t get to see that much of Sheffield. It’s quite odd but it was great. The estate was very good to us in terms of the production value because it’s so big.”

It’s a brave producer that tackles the Troubles. There have been films and TV shows over the years notably Harry’s Game, a Yorkshire Television production from 1982 when the conflict was at its height.

“Everything to do with the Troubles goes to Northern Ireland Screen. They get sent them all and don’t do that many,” he adds.

“They immediately said they wanted to do this because they hadn’t seen anything set in Belfast that was from the point of view of a soldier. It wasn’t partisan and wasn’t about a specific incident or a specific political viewpoint.”

Yann Demange grabs a few brief moments away from his monitor as the street scene is redressed. He’s fired up about the project.

“I’ve waited a long time to find something I felt passionate about. I like Warp a lot. I’m taking risks and they’re being very supportive. They have let me really go for it. I really like Greg, too. I changed it a fair deal when I came on board and it’s become our film. I feel very fortunate [because] it’s been a true collaboration.”

Demange brought his own perspective to this soldier’s story. Like Lamont he sees ’71 as a tale about an innocent – a naïf from the working classes – and the resultant loss of that innocent during a few revelatory hours.

“These boys more often than not are searching for a tribe. In Gary’s case he’s almost seeking the paternal. These boys without fathers don’t know what to do with themselves and the army is a place they feel they can belong. It’s a sense of family. And then there’s a terrible betrayal that takes place when these boys get sacrificed. I don’t think they entirely grasp that that’s the nature of the relationship.”

Derbyshire lad Jack O’Connell is gulping water from a plastic bottle as a make-up artist pads the sweat from his face. In full fatigues and flak jacket he is suffering from the effects of the heat. His face is blotchy, his breathing hard. His beret hangs from the barrel of the (fake) rifle that leans against the wall next to him. He’s grateful for a moment’s respite.

At just 24 – he was 22 when shooting ’71 during the summer of 2013 – O’Connell is on the cusp of success and enormous fame. Part of that is due to his starring role as WW2 Olympian turned prisoner of war camp survivor Louis Zamperini in Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie.

That’s his Hollywood breakthrough. His role in ’71 consolidates his British career. He gazes across the plausible artifice of the location and puts his thoughts into words.

“I play a British soldier who’s completely naïve to any of the politics or the history, as were many who were out there at the time. It’s often the case where maybe the British armed forces are depicted as quite brutal or very unsympathetic,” he says.

“I’ve been given the opportunity here to play a variation of that where he’s got no form of malice at all to those who he might regard as his enemy. And of course we haven’t got the budget to shoot an all-out war film so he gets separated from the rest of his platoon and then it’s sort of a one-man mission but without it being an action film.

“He’s no action hero. He’s a bit of a pussy in this very male-dominated, brutal environment. He’s out of his depth.”

And also I’ve been able to make him a Derbyshire man. Originally he was from Leeds. They wanted me to play a Leeds man! So I had to have a word and I said ‘Nah!’”

’71 is released nationwide today. For a review of the film see today’s Culture supplement.