Sharing the Limelight – our ‘genuine legacy’ to the world of filmmaking
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In 2024, the revelatory documentary Limelight – Salvation and the Silver Screen received its world premiere in Melbourne. The documentary, capturing the staggering tale of the birth of cinema and the Salvos’ role as midwives, started streaming online in November 2025. It is now available as a limited-edition DVD.
BY BARRY GITTINS
We take it for granted, watching things happen on film. But if it weren’t for Salvation Army innovators in the 19th century, ‘movies’ wouldn’t have started and developed in Australia, influencing filmmakers worldwide.
Do you recall the first thing you ever saw as a young child, on television or in the cinema? Those memories stay with us; the moving image perennially sparks joy in our lives. That’s as true for Limelight documentary producers Eddie Beyrouthy and Phil Lambert as it is for any of us.
Phil, who also gives Limelight its soundtrack, says his first memory of film was seeing 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial as a five-year-old.
“I was so emotional, I really got upset,” Phil laughs. “My love of film is tied to my background in music, and my brother and I were engrossed in the soundtracks of films, which we would tape and play. It was my first real love, and it led me to grabbing a video recorder and going out and filming.”
Eddie, who also directed and edited the Limelight documentary, says film captured his heart at an early age.
“I purchased a Super 8 camera in 1997 and shot my first hand-drawn, stop-motion animation,” he recalls.
Acknowledging inspiration from the first of Indiana Jones’ cinematic adventures, the production showed “two young boys at the bottom of the hill, with a large rock descending towards them,” he says.
Eddie’s passion for the project began with a visit to the Limelight Studio at 69 Bourke Street, Melbourne, where he encountered the seemingly forgotten stories of Salvation Army showmen touring Australasia and showing films to a public hungry for the experience.
“I don’t think that Salvation Army officer Joseph Perry and The Salvation Army knew they were birthing an art form and revolutionising an industry,” Eddie says. “They were in large part giving birth to cinema and cinematography. One hundred years later we can see they did so, and that changed their history, and Australian and world history.
“Technology equals innovation, and innovation equals influence.”
“Perry was always pushing himself and his crew,” Phil notes, “and trying to find a better, more compelling way to tell a story. If something sparks your love of life, it changes you, and it changes those who see your work.”
For the Limelight Department members and the 20 Biorama touring companies, Eddie says, “it wasn’t a job – it was a mission, driven by passion and imagination, with the backing of The Salvation Army.”
Limelight Department staff and filmmakers in the mid-1900s, with Captain Joseph Perry in the centre.
While those halcyon days came to an end in 1909 and 1910, Eddie suggests it’s important for Salvationists “to embrace their influence on the innovation of the moving image – they have a genuine legacy”.
“Regardless of the feelings at the time, and the closure of the department, they played a world-shaping role,” he adds. “They can be proud of the reality that if it wasn’t for Perry and Herbert Booth, and their comrades, the film industry wouldn’t have been nurtured and developed in Australia. There was a by-product to their work; an accidental role in giving life to dreams.”
“The Salvation Army captured and recorded vital moments in this country’s history,” adds Phil. “It’s surreal that the innovation was matched with vision; they took this new technology and put it together with such effective people.”
READ MORE: Limelight documentary premiere
Documentary links
• Copies of the DVD can be purchased at The Salvation Army Australia Museum’s Melbourne and Sydney (Auburn) sites. Click here.
• To order a copy of the DVD via post, message the filmmakers via social media, click here.
• The documentary is streaming on numerous online platforms including Wonder, Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Fetch TV, SKY, FOXTEL and Google TV. It can be watched at home for AUS$5.99. For more information, click here.
• The film’s hauntingly beautiful soundtrack is available on Spotify. Click here.
• Inspired by the documentary, the short film Legacy Film Competition engages high school students in Australia and New Zealand as they submit entries. Click here.
