Directors UK members showed that the world of factual broadcasting is rich in talent behind the camera, with members’ works nominated in almost every category of the Griersons 2017.
Among the dozens of nominees announced by The Grierson Trust today, four Directors UK members have programmes in the running for more than one award. Pip Broughton’s Aberfan: The Green Hollow is nominated for both Best Single Documentary - Domestic, and Best Historical. Member Dan Edge (alongside Lauren Mucciolo) is nominated for both Best Single Documentary - International and Best Current Affairs for Last Days of Solitary.
Meanwhile — in a Grierson first — Daniel Gordon is in two different categories for two different films: Hillsborough for Best Single Documentary - Domestic and The Fall for Best Single Documentary - International. Martha Delap’s Chronicles of Nadiya is nominated for Best Entertaining, with its host Nadiya Hussein is also in the running for Best Presenter.
In fact, Directors UK members are spread right throughout the categories. Joining Pip Broughton and Dan Gordon in the Best Single Documentary – Domestic category are Luke Sewell for No Place to Call Home and Matt Smith for Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad. James Jones joins members Dan Edge and Daniel Gordon among the nominees for Best Single Documentary – International, for Unarmed Black Male.
Best Current Affairs Documentary promises to be another competitive category: Last Days of Solitary, directed by Dan Edge and Lauren Mucciolo, is joined by Christine Garabedian’s Goodbye Aleppo and Tom Barrow’s The Secret Life of Prisons, among others.
In Best Arts Documentary members Clare Bevan, Richard Curson-Smith and Nick Willing are nominated for Bricks!, Francis Bacon: A Brush With Violence and Paula Rego: Secrets and Stories respectively.
The Best Science Documentary category features no fewer than five Directors UK members: Dominique Walker and Jack Rampling are nominated for an episode of The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs; Barbie MacLaurin is nominated for The Drug Trial: Emergency at the Hospital; Stephen Cooter is nominated for the second episode of Forces of Nature with Brian Cox and Peter Gauvin is nominated for Michael Mosley vs The Superbugs.
In Best Natural History Documentary, Simon Davies is nominated for an episode of Birds of Paradise: The Ultimate Quest, Clare Dornan and Alex Williamson are nominated for Monkeys: An Amazing Animal Family and Elizabeth White is nominated is nominated for Planet Earth II – Islands.
In Best Entertaining Documentary, the aforementioned Martha Delap is joined by members James Incledon and Chris Rowe for 999: What's Your Emergency? - Nobody ever said, “When I grow up I want to answer 999 calls”, and Simon Draper has earned a nomination for Marigold on Tour.
Best Documentary Series is another category in which members are well represented. James Bluemel, Jack MacInness, Paul Glynn and Robin Barnwell are all nominated for Exodus, Arthur Cary and Jonathan Taylor are nominated for American Justice, and the production of team of Hospital – which includes several Directors UK members – has also been selected.
The production crew of Muslims Like Us, meanwhile, is another member-filled nominee for Best Constructed Documentary Series, joined in the category by Sam Eastall for Hunted, Simon Joslin, Marcus English and Adrian Hylton for Rich house, Poor House, and Sophie Leonard and Alex Kiehl for SAS: Who Dares Wins.
Many congratulations to all our members on their nominations.
The awards will be presented on 6th November at a ceremony hosted by Stephen Mangan. You can find a full list of the nominees here.
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