Brian Welsh (born 1981) is a Scottish film and television director and screenwriter. His film, Beats (2019), received generally positive reviews. He has also directed the Black Mirror episode "The Entire History of You" (2011), and several BBC television series, including What It Feels Like for a Girl.
Early and personal life Welsh was born in Falkirk, Scotland in 1981, and moved to Aberdeen when he was 10. As of May 2019, he divided his time between Cornwall, England, and Aberdeen, Scotland.
Career Welsh studied filmmaking at the Cleveland College of Art and Design, where he became interested in film editing. He worked as an editor in Glasgow following his graduation, and then enrolled in the National Film and Television School. In his last year, Welsh was given a small budget and directed a film, Kin. Following that, he worked on another low budget film, In Our Name (2010). The film is about a female soldier returning to Britain after tour in Iraq, and struggling to re-adapt to society. In 2011, he directed the Black Mirror episode "The Entire History of You".
In 2015, it was announced that Welsh would direct a Winston Churchill biopic, Churchill (2017), starring Brian Cox. However, he was later replaced by Jonathan Teplitzky. The same year, he directed Glasgow Girls, a television series based on the Glasgow Girls, a group of female activists raising awareness of the treatment of asylum seekers in Scotland. The series won the "Television Drama" category at the 2015 British Academy Scotland Awards.
In 2019, Welsh directed Beats, a coming-of-age adaptation of a stage play that received generally positive reviews. The film was adapted from the stage play Beats by Kieran Hurley, which Welsh first saw in 2012 and described as personally resonant with his own teenage experiences in Aberdeen at the end of the rave era. Wendy Ide for The Guardian called the movie "the liveliest work to date" of Welsh's filmography. The film was the final one shown at the 2019 Glasgow Film Festival.
In 2025, Welsh was the lead director of the BBC television adaptation of What It Feels Like for a Girl, based on the memoir by Paris Lees. The series follows a transgender girl growing up in the East Midlands club culture during the early 2000s. Welsh is scheduled to direct The Return Of Stanley Atwell, a thriller starring Nicholas Galitzine and Ella Purnell.
Filmography Film Year Title Director Writer 2009 Kin 2010 In Our Name 2016 The Rack Pack 2019 Beats TBA The Return of Stanley Atwell
Television Year Title Director Writer 2011 "The Entire History of You" (Black Mirror) 2013 Mayday The Escape Artist 2015 Glasgow Girls 2025 What It Feels Like for a Girl
Awards and nominations + Award Year Category Nominated work Result BAFTA Scotland 2015 Television Drama Glasgow Girls 2019 Director – Fiction Beats Broadcast Awards 2015 Best Original Programme Glasgow Girls Rose d'Or 2025 Best Drama What It Feels Like for a Girl Royal Television Society Craft & Design Awards 2025 Director – Scripted What It Feels Like for a Girl Royal Television Society Scotland Awards 2016 Television Director of the Year The Rack Pack Writers' Guild Awards 2020 Best Screenplay Beats
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