FACTUAL
AUTHORED DOCUMENTARY
Yorkshire Ripper: A Very British Crime Story brought the focus onto 1970s attitudes to women. Mindhouse is working with Williams on her next project. Arron Fellows says: “she brought to [the Yorkshire Ripper story] something very individual, very personal, very specific.”
Fresh faces The industry is calling for more diverse voices.
“There’s always space for strong authorial voices,” says Lawford. “It’s also important we have as many different perspectives authoring those stories.” Dare has set out to champion new talent in
the industry and diverse points of view. “We’re passionate about diversity, allyship, representation and empowerment,” says Lawford. It’s a wide embrace. He includes directors moving sideways into the industry, citing former cinematographer Alex Pritz and Grierson winner former photographer Alfred George Bailey. Bringing people through takes commitment.
Producer Riva Japaul has been shadowing Rudolph Herzog on the Crypto Queen series. Kim Longinotto is co-directing with upcoming Scottish film-maker Franky Murray Brown. Grierson DocLab has been backing new talent
in documentary since 2012. Amongst its alumni are Poppy Goodheart, director of Channel 4 First Cut film The Boy Who Can’t Stop Dancing, also producer of multi award-winning Locked In: Breaking the Silence. And Cherish Oteka who won a BAFTA in 2022 for their short documentary The Black Cop. At the NFTS, which runs its Directing
Documentary MA, recent graduates include Jessica Brady and Ghada Eldemallawy who both won Griersons; Hugh Clegg who has a comedic approach to his work; and Arnas Pigulevicius whose graduation film was shown at the London Film Festival. BBC Three has been a good platform for new,
young directors. It offers a home for a first film for those selected for the BBC New Director’s Scheme. Recent films from the scheme’s alumni include Eddie Hall: The Beast v The Mountain from director Olivia Isaacs, Defending Digga D, which won director Marian Mohamed the BAFTA for Emerging Factual Talent 2021, and Ziyaad Desai’s Bad Influencer: The Great Insta Con. In 2022, Adam Brown, a former DP, followed
Mohamed to the same BAFTA with Into the Storm: Surfing to Survive, screened on the BBC’s Storyville. James Rogan remembers that after his first film,
which was backed by Storyville, it was hard to get the second or third. “The industry needs to be
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televisual.com Spring 2023
mindful of those second and third films…You’re a distinctive voice, you can clearly do something, but you can’t do everything. That’s a difficult transition period.” Brian Woods agrees. “The new directors schemes are great,” he says. “The challenge is the second and third films.” At Channel 4, home to For Sama, from film
makers Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts and the Jeremy Kyle Show: Death on Daytime, directed by Kira Phillips, there’s room for debut films with its First Cut Brief. There’s also a relatively new pot for documentaries on All4. They’re after the next Seaspiracy, Supersize Me, The Great Global Warming Swindle and have put out a call for “the next generation gonzo film makers in the vein of Michael Moore and Chris Morris.” Mindhouse is on the case with finding on-
screen talent that stretches behind the camera too. “We’re always asked, ‘how do you get the next Louis Theroux?’ He’s been able to explore themes, subject matters that he’s interested in and he’s brought a following, an audience to him,” says Fellows. “The opportunity is whether we can push through more people and trust them to
go out and make programmes which will then generate an audience.” It takes confident leadership by the
broadcasters. “It’s a brave decision for a commissioner to say this is how we’re going to approach this specific topic and we’re going to do it in a way which feels very distinctly this director, this person,” says Fellows. At Sky, while known directors are important,
they have made room for emerging talent. Its Docs Short initiative will fund projects from diverse and disabled directors. Sophie Cunningham gained her first directing credit on Sky film Look Away. Gussy Sakula-Barry directed Sky Crime series Fred West: The Glasgow Girls, “giving it a strong female perspective, highlighting the experiences of these forgotten women, including the domestic violence they suffered,” says Poppy Dixon. Upcoming is Georgina Cammaleri’s first film Right to Fight. It’s harder to put an authorial stamp on the
kind of box set retrospective films that are popular at the moment, but there’s still room for film makers to bring their voice. “They’ll still be able to put their mark, their stamp on films,” says Fellows.
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