We’ve had an incredibly busy year of filmmaking, with some important new films being released for broadcast and also across online channels. At the end of 2018 we launched our sister company Rogan Digital, a commercially focused division producing online content for brands and agencies. Over the course of 2019 we released 3 new broadcast documentaries and embarked on 3 new projects for Rogan Digital. Our films have also been nominated for 8 awards – 6 of which we won (including a double Grierson award victory for Crisis in Care, and a BAFTA nomination for our Creative Director James Rogan). 2020 is set to be just as busy, with 2 new major series already commissioned by Channel 4: Putin: A Russian Spy Story (w/t) and The World According to Paul Dacre (w/t).
Films released in 2019:
1. Crisis in Care: Who Cares?/Who Pays
Crisis in Care looks at the deepening crisis faced by the care system that supports older and disabled people across the country by following one local authority over 10 months – Somerset County Council. After a preview screening at BBC Radio Theatre, the film was then screened at the House of Commons in an event organised by Rogan Productions and Helen Hayes MP.
2. Stabbed: Britain’s Knife Crime Crisis
This double Grierson award-winning film (Best Single Documentary – Domestic’ & ‘Best Documentary Presenter’) is an intimate and revealing look at one of the biggest challenges facing the country. In 1993 Duwayne Brooks was waiting at a bus stop in Eltham with his friend Stephen Lawrence when they were attacked by a racist gang and Stephen was brutally stabbed to death. Witnessing Stephen’s murder left Duwayne severely traumatised. Still deeply affected 25 years on, he wants to take viewers on a personal journey into the current wave of knife crime and the impact it is having across the nation.
3. Border Country: When Ireland was Divided
Border Country: When Ireland was Divided gives a timely insight into the stories of the people whose lives were, and still are, affected by the hard border between Ireland and the UK. Border Country: When Ireland was Divided, brings 100 years of archival footage together with the stories of people whose lives have been affected by this crucial dividing line.
4. Bringing Down Jammeh
A film for BBC News Africa. Yahya Jammeh was one of Africa’s most feared and brutal dictators, ruling Gambia with an iron fist for over two decades. But in 2016 the impossible happened: he lost his own rigged election. This is the story of the men and women who challenged a dictator and, against all the odds, defeated him in a democratic process.
5. #BecauseofStephen – Stephen Lawrence Day
We produced a series of short films for a campaign to raise awareness about Stephen Lawrence Day. The films were used across social media to spark conversations about the impact of Stephen’s death on society and to celebrate a mark in Stephen’s life by focusing on the positive outcomes of his death.
6. BBC Teach
Stephen: The Murder That Changed a Nation is being used as a BBC Teach resource for secondary school citizenship lessons. The resources can be accessed here.
