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London film-maker arrested for carrying bomb props
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent12 Nov 2009
A first-time London film-maker was arrested by Italian police who mistook mocked-up prop documents on bomb-making for the real thing.
David Holroyd, 40, summonsed colleague Steve Buckland to show footage shot in Rome to prove his innocence only to find that the panic-stricken director of photography had secreted film away for fear it was about to be seized.
The moment of crisis for Mr Holroyd, whose previous experience of crime was directing The Bill - and Footballers' Wives - for ITV, was resolved only when he found one tape in the bottom of the bag showing a clapper board shot.
He was finally released to finish his low-budget drama, entitled WMD. It has just been released on DVD and through iTunes and will be screened at the Clapham Picture House on 5 January in a debate with the MP Clare Short.
It is a fictional story, inspired by real events, of what happens when an ordinary MI6 desk officer stumbles across forged documents in the evidence being presented to justify the invasion of Iraq.
But Mr Holroyd, who lives in East Dulwich, admitted that until his arrest in Rome airport, even he did not realise how assiduous his art department had been.
The papers that alarmed police when the crew accidentally dropped them in departures were taken from documents which the Americans - wrongly - claimed showed Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium for nuclear bombs in Africa. The art team had downloaded the contentious papers from the internet and tidied them up for filming.
It was not the only run-in with police during filming. Metropolitan police officers turned up when they were shooting near the MI5 headquarters in Millbank, although were quickly reassured by the crew's permits.
The project started when Mr Holroyd was trying to think of a cheap but convincing way of filming, having failed to get four previous films off the ground despite a decade's experience of writing and directing documentaries and directing TV drama.
He realised that using surveillance and CCTV cameras would keep costs down and lend an authentic air to a thriller - and from there it was a small leap to the weapons of mass destruction controversy.
The film was shot in London, Berlin and Washington as well as Rome despite having a budget under £100,000.
Mr Holroyd urged people not to see the film as a turgid and worthy piece of political propagandising. He said: “I wrote the film first and foremost as a thriller that I hope will shock people and keep them on the edge of their seat.”
