(Photo: Richard Ansett)
ABOUT ME
I’m a freelance documentary filmmaker, and live in the UK with my wife (the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey), and our son Finn. I’ve won over a dozen awards for my work in areas of conflict, including an Emmy, two BAFTAs, an RTS, a Grierson and the Foreign Press Association award for Journalist of the year.
I studied English Literature at Durham University and briefly worked in the theatre, before getting my first job as a runner at a small documentary production company. I then worked my way up as a researcher and Assistant Producer on documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 before being commissioned to make my own film for Channel’s 4 strand for new directors. The resulting film, Four Weeks to Find a Girlfriend was a gruesomely personal journey into the horrors of modern dating, and was shortlisted for a BAFTA (Best New Director, Factual) and nominated for a Grierson Award (Best Newcomer).
Since then, I've made single films for the BBC, Netflix, Channel 4 and Sky, including four documentaries for Channel 4’s flagship series Cutting Edge (including Confessions of a Traffic Warden and A Very British Storm Junkie ), the hit series Aftershock for Netflix, as well as a number of a critically acclaimed single films (including One Day in Gaza, Abused: The Untold Story and The Teaboy of Gaza for the BBC, Syria: Across The Lines and Battle Hospital for C4, and Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict for Sky1). I also co-directed Rory Stewart's BAFTA-winning two part series on the history of foreign interventions in Afghanistan.
My most recent work includes Ukraine: The People’s Fight for the BBC (2023), a graphic and intimate account of a small group of inexperienced frontline soldiers in southern Ukraine; and Aftershock for Netflix (2022), a hit series that combined graphic archive footage with detailed interviews to tell the story of three very different groups of people caught up in Nepal’s devastating earthquake of 2015. Before that, I made One Day in Gaza (BBC), a detailed exploration of the events of May 14th 2018, when a mass demonstration by Palestinians against the moving of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem resulted in over 60 Gazans being killed and almost 3,000 being injured by the Israel Defence Forces in a single day. It was nominated for a Grierson Award for Best Current Affairs documentary 2019, and won the Broadcast Award for Best Current Affairs Documentary.
My 2011 film My Child The Rioter set the tone for a series of intimate, “testimonial” films that used intimate, forensic interviews to get insight into complex and layered issues within relationships. For this I interviewed young people who were involved in the British riots of 2011 alongside their parents, and it was followed up in 2014 with Mum and Dad are Splitting Up, a critically acclaimed film for which I interviewed children in the presence of their separated parents. This film was used as a teaching tool for Relate counsellors.
In 2014 I began a collaboration with BBC Newsnight, working with their producers to help develop a greater documentary sensibility within Current Affairs, while also producing short, fast turnaround documentaries of my own about current news stories. Films include a week behind the scenes at the Trump White House briefing room, the reality of the Somerset floods, and an account of life on the front line between Russia and Ukraine. All these films and more can be seen here.
Syria: Across The Lines documented life on both sides of a sectarian frontline in rural Syria, witnessing how a once-peaceful community was breaking apart along ethnic and religious lines. The resulting film won ten prestigious awards, including an unprecedented clean sweep of an Emmy, a BAFTA, an RTS and a Grierson.
Other films include my feature length BBC documentary Abused: The Untold Story, which featured interviews with survivors and victims of sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile and others, many of whom had never spoken publicly before. The film was regarded as a defining insight into the real and lasting legacy of Savile's crimes.
I've won a number of international awards, including the Foreign Press Association award for "Journalist of the Year", and was the recipient of the 2014 Peter McGhee Fellowship award, which honours a filmmaker whose work reflects excellence, intelligence, fairness and scholarship. My films often focus on ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and I hope I can bring an intimacy and clarity to tough, complex subjects.