The film reveals the legacy of a behind-the-scenes accident on the Harry Potter set.
Updated 01/11/23: Sky debut the trailer for David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived
Ahead of its release, Sky have dropped a trailer for the upcoming documentary about David Holmes. He was the young stunt performer injured on a Harry Potter movie set.
The two minute promo takes us from the seemingly indestructible life of a young stunt performer to the challenges of his life after the accident. The film looks like it will be an inspirational watch.
David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived is released on demand via Sky Documentaries and on the streaming service NOW from 18th November, 2023.
Original article (of 30/10/23) follows…
David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived – new Harry Potter documentary
It’s been 12 years since the release of the final Harry Potter film but interest in the franchise remains buoyant. There are even plans afoot for a reboot of the story as a television series.
However, there’s another tale to be told from behind-the-scenes of 2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One. It’s related in a new film, directed by Dan Hartley and executive produced by Daniel Radcliffe.
The documentary tells the story of the young gymnast who had been Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double since the first Potter movie. However, during the rehearsal for a flying sequence he fell from a harness and broke his neck. As a result, he became paralysed from the waist down, and began using a wheelchair.
Here’s the synopsis: for David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived
The film is a coming-of-age story of stuntman David Holmes, a prodigious teenage gymnast from Essex, England, who is selected to play Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double in the first Harry Potter film, when Daniel is just eleven. Over the next ten years, the two form an inextricable bond, but on the penultimate film a tragic accident on set leaves David paralysed with a debilitating spinal injury, turning his world upside down. As Daniel and his closest stunt colleagues rally to support David and his family in their moment of need, it is David’s extraordinary spirit of resilience that becomes their greatest source of strength and inspiration.
Featuring candid personal footage shot over the last decade, behind-the-scenes material from Holmes’ stunt work, scenes of his current life and intimate interviews with David, Daniel Radcliffe, friends, family, and former crew, the film also reflects universal themes of living with adversity, growing up, forging identities in an uncertain world, and the bonds that bind us together and lift us up.
Sky presents David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived in association with HBO Documentary Films, a Lightbox / Ripple Production.
Directed by Dan Hartley; produced by Simon Chinn, Jonathan Chinn, Vanessa Davies, Amy Stares; executive produced by Daniel Radcliffe, David Holmes, Dan Hartley, Sue Latimer, Sarah Spahovic. For HBO: executive producers Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, Tina Nguyen. For Sky: executive producer, Poppy Dixon.
The film is available on demand via Sky Documentaries and NOW from 18th November, 2023.