A FORMER footballer turned filmmaker is making waves in Australia with a new film chronicling a friend’s extraordinary triathlon challenge.

David Brooks, who emigrated Down Under in 1981, saw his film 'Crossing The Line' broadcast on Australian television last month and is now releasing it on DVD.

The 61-year-old, who is back in Bury this month to celebrate his mother’s 90th birthday, followed his friend John van Wisse on the gruelling 483km Arch to Arc event from London to Paris.

In just over 61 hours, van Wisse ran from London's Marble Arch to Dover, swam the English Channel, and rode his bike nearly 300km from Calais to L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris, smashing the previous record by 12 hours.

Mr Brooks, who had help from friend and MUTV executive producer Phil Matthews in completing the film, said: “John decided to do this last year and I got the rights to film it. It was an absolutely unbelievable experience and the most remarkable achievement from him.

“The conditions in the channel were absolutely awful and we were dragging him out of the water at the end.

“He beat the previous record by 12 hours, which is amazing. He’s the most incredible guy and I had no idea how dramatic it was all going to be.

“Now he’s coming back next year because he knows he can break his own record. The weather was bad in the channel and he got lost in London, so he knows he can be even faster.”

Mr Brooks originally travelled to Australia on a football visa and played in the Australian leagues until the age of 40, having once been on Bury FC’s books, before starting a new career in filmmaking five years ago.

This was his second major project, but since coming back to his hometown, he has been inspired to start putting together a film on a group of young boxers he met at a Radcliffe gym.

He added: “I’m still a mad Bury FC fan and I come back home regularly. I will never forget that game against Tranmere last season, I was up in the middle of the night listening to it on the radio.

“I think I’ve become an even more passionate fan in the time I’ve been gone because of the effort you need to go through to follow it.”

To watch the trailer: log on to vimeo.com/117456530