GREAT DOCUMENTARIES


Watching the detectives


DOCUMENTARY SERIES WINNER


DON’T FUCK WITH CATS


Netflix Raw TV


While Netflix’s Don’t Fuck With Cats dealt with a tragic crime story on the surface, director Mark Lewis says the real story was about the online sleuths who first tracked the killer down


“It’s not simply a horrific and tragic crime story, it’s also about the advent of a criminal on the internet. That made it a story of our time,” says director Mark Lewis about the gripping tale of Luka Magnotta and the internet sleuths who helped unveil him. And while the story reported in the news at the time of Magnotta’s arrest was incredible enough, after digging deeper, the real focus of the series was found. “What it was really about was these extraordinary internet detectives who tracked him down, that was the really surprising thing,” says Lewis. “There used to be a time when a crime was committed on a street and the police would call for citizens to come forward as witnesses or in extreme cases, citizens might make a citizen’s arrest but now what you’re seeing is a huge increase in internet vigilantism and internet sleuthing.”


The two main internet sleuths themselves,


Deanna Thompson and John Green, had barely featured in the original reporting of the crimes, and hunting them down was not easy. “It was a huge effort to get hold of them as they were operating under anonymous monikers. They’re naturally quite secretive so we had to persuade them to finally break cover and speak to us. They’re not the most


IT WAS REALLY ABOUT THESE EXTRAORDINARY INERNET DETECTIVES


public of people so to persuade them to do it was actually a huge task.”


But it was through those characters that the viewer could gain a closer connection to the story.


21


televisual.com Special Supplement Spring 2021


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