A Birmingham Symphony

Directed by Jemma Saunders

2026

A train pulling into Birmingham’s famous New Street Station is the opening sequence to a new 12-minute short from Midlands filmmaker Jemma Saunders.

A Birmingham Symphony is a love-letter poetic documentary that explores everything about the UK’s second city. Or first if you live in the Midlands perhaps.

And of course, Ozzy, the landmark steampunk mechanical bull statue in the centre of the station’s concourse makes an early appearance placing us directly into the hustle and bustle of the city.

What follows is a cinematic collage of some of the locations and sites that make Birmingham what it is today. We get the obligatory nods to canals and Peaky Blinders but more personal are the everyday places many of us have walked by, but taken less notice than we should.

Accompanying these fleeting images is an excellent musical score by Oscar Vinter. We get jaunty ditties and orchestral flashes, all which serve to bring gravitas to the film and add plenty of upbeat local character when needed as well. A dash of electronica and some booming John Williams-style pieces bring alive the fascinating local images and both are edited well together.

From the tiny (street signs, stickers and lights) to the large (Town Hall, skyscrapers and what looked like Edgbaston Waterworks Tower), things are given equal prominence demonstrating the city’s big size as well as its smaller intimacy.

The film also spans a number of seasons with snowy parks and springtime water-walks of the greener side of the city. This contrasts nicely against sequences featuring the summer vibes of busy shopping areas and chaos amongst the ring road.

Architecture, nature, transport and Birmingham’s friendly citizens are all given a moment to shine too but for me the collage of images were a little haphazard at times. Admittedly, cinematic art montages are not my regular go-to, but to be fair the well-shot visuals and splendid score shows a clear passion for Birmingham and all its quirky character.

It works mostly as an experimental art piece. There’s no narrative per se, with viewers simply presented with the images and are asked to bring their own interpretation and no doubt their own warm memories of these places along with them. Although it's broken into 5 parts which mostly reflect "a day in the life" vibe, maybe structuring around one particular strong story theme – changing of the seasons, urban and rural difference or history and modernity may have made it a little more accessible.

All that said, A Birmingham Symphony is a skilled artistic piece, composed with a keen eye and with an adoring love for this particular area of the Midlands. And with excellent images and exciting music coming at a fast tempo, this is a non-stop journey that explores all facets of a place so loved by its inhabitants and visitors alike. Encore!

★★★½

3.5 / 5

Michael Sales

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