The former leader of an Irish criminal enterprise returns home to face new challenges in Director Tom Harper’s period drama, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man.

In the big screen follow-up to the television series, Peaky Blinders, Tommy Shelby returns to a bombed-out Birmingham, England from a self-imposed exile amid the chaos of World War II. With the future of his family and country at stake, he must face his demons and choose whether to confront his legacy or burn it to the ground.

On March 8, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Harper discussed the making of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man during a Q&A moderated by Director Mary Harron (Daliland).

During the conversation, Harper expressed his preference for shooting on location rather than manufactured vistas.

“I love location shooting… It’s an interesting time, isn’t it when you can pretty much do everything with visual effects or incredible set builds, or you can create anything, and that’s a wonderful thing. But there’s something for me, in this age of AI and technology, that the more real it can be… that the heart of cinema or storytelling lies in the imperfections of reality rather than creating worlds.”

Harper’s other directorial credits include the feature films Heart of Stone, The Aeronauts, Wild Rose and The Scouting Book for Boys; the mini-series War & Peace; and episodes of Electric Dreams, The Son and Peaky Blinders. He has been a DGA member since 2016.