THE life of a woman with North-East roots who helped shaped the future of Iraq after the First World War has been captured in a new documentary.

Letters from Baghdad tells the story of just one period of the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell, a woman who played a major role in establishing the modern state of Iraq, as well as being an extensive traveller, writer, mountaineer, and archaeologist who mapped much of Arabia and the Middle East.

Bell, who was born in July 1868 in Washington New Hall, County Durham, and grew up in Redcar, was the granddaughter of ironmaster Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, an industrialist and a Liberal Member of Parliament.

Her grandfather and father both encouraged her curiosity for the world and her privileged position made her extensive travelling possible – but she soon gained respect in her own right for the trust she built with tribal leaders throughout the Middle East.

Tilda Swinton takes the lead as the voice of Bell in the documentary, from Verve Pictures and Between the Rivers Productions, which will be released on April 21.

Bell was often called the ‘female’ Lawrence of Arabia, but in reality she was more influential than her friend and colleague.

She travelled widely in Arabia before being recruited by British military intelligence during WWI to help draw the borders of Iraq and as a result helped shape the modern Middle East.

She published her observations in several books, including Syria: The Desert and the Sown, photographing and describing cities including Damascus, Jerusalem and Beirut, and later completed works of the Ottoman Empire and Mesopotamia.

Bell, who held a first class degree in history from Oxford University, spoke Arabic, Persian, French and German, and during WWI acted as an advisor to the British Army, drawing maps to allow them to get safely into Baghdad.

By 1920, she played the role of mediator between the Arab government and British officials, and often had to mediate between the various groups of Iraq including Shias, Sunnis and the Kurds, as keeping the groups united was important for political balance in Iraq and British interests.

Bell helped to establish the national museum and library, and kept a keen interest in both.

When she died in 1926 in Baghdad she was buried at the British cemetery in the city. Her funeral was a major event, attended by large numbers of people including her colleagues, British officials and the King of Iraq.

Using never-seen-before footage of the region, the film chronicles her extraordinary journey into both the uncharted Arabian Desert and the inner sanctum of British colonial power.

The film tells her story using only the worlds of Bell and her contemporaries, taken from their intimate letters, private diaries and official documents.

Directors Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbühl said: “We are thrilled to be able to screen Letters From Baghdad in UK cinemas. It’s long overdue for Gertrude Bell to be brought back into the public eye in the UK, after being written out of history for over half a century."