An adrenaline-pumping knife chase through graffiti-sprayed lanes takes place in the comedy-thriller The Outlaws, while class tensions simmer at a lavish student ball in the legal drama Showtrial.
The city council has been inundated with requests to film in the city’s dank alleys, high-rises and grand Georgian squares since the beginning of the year, according to Bristol Film Office, which is part of the city council.
“The last year has been like nothing we have experienced,” says Natalie Moore, who manages Bristol Film Office.
The city has long been a hub of nature films and animation; it is the home of the BBC’s Natural History Unit and the Oscar-winning Aardman Animations.
The Outlaws, filmed in locations throughout the city, follows seven bickering lawbreakers, including Myrna, a veteran anti-racist campaigner, who is ordered to do community service for “tearing down that statue of Edward Colston”.
Although a lot of filming takes place in Bristol, the city is often doubling for somewhere else; it hasn’t played itself very often, but it’s such a visually interesting place.
Simon Heath, its executive producer, feels the city has too often been overlooked: “It has its own unique identity, culture and accent – yet has hardly been seen in TV drama.
The Bottle Yard Studios, which is one of only two council-owned studios in the country, has eight stages, with three more opening next summer, following an £11.3m investment from the West of England metro mayor, Labour’s Dan Norris.
Thispublic investment – alongside Bristol’s burgeoning reputation as a “Green Hollywood” of natural history film-making – has allowed independent production companies to take root in the city.