SIR JOHN MILLS UP CLOSE & PERSONAL

ONE of the world's greatest and most enduring actors, Sir John Mills, is the subject of a new film containing unscreened footage filmed by the great man himself on his own 16mm camera.
Award-winning director Marcus Dillistone shot the film Moving Memories, which includes interviews with Sir John and his children Hayley, Juliet and Jonathan, using one of JVC’s latest widescreen GY-DV700WE Professional DV camcorders.
What is causing particular interest is the unique personal film record of Johnny Mills’ life and work.
He stumbled across 12,000 feet of unprocessed 16mm film in the attic of his home and after working with Dillistone on the film The Troop, asked him to see what could be done with the old footage.
“It was a great honour to be asked and a marvellous experience to see Sir John’s life unfolding on 16 mm. We managed to get hold of one of JVC’s new widescreen Professional DV cameras to shoot on. We recorded interviews with Sir John and his family which we interspersed with the colour home movie footage,” said Dillistone, of the Glory Film Company.
Most remarkable is the captured colour footage of superb old black and white films like Ice Cold in Alex and Dunkirk and the stars filmed relaxing by Sir John’s camera reads like a who’s who of British and world cinema.
The hour-long film was premiered aboard HMS Belfast on the Thames and screened using JVC’s state of the art D-ILA projection equipment.
(SP)