"Tense, chilling... powerful"
New York Times
“A vivid portrait of the human cost for malfeasance and authoritarianism.”
LA Times
"Disturbing and unique"
USA Today
“Harrowing.. remarkable”
CNN
"Chilling, unnerving... chronicle of folly which makes it perversely fascinating and, one hopes, cautionary."
Wall Street Journal
“Mind-blowing… Raw, chillingly timely” *****
The Times
“Astonishing, poignant film”
Daily Mail
“Essential viewing… that will hit hard and live long in the memory”
The Times
“Remarkable film”
Total TV Guide
“Excellent, harrowing film”
Telegraph
“Powerful new documentary”
The Sun
“Brilliant…. utterly absorbing”
The Observer
“Superb, compelling… Extraordinarily powerful… James Jones’ gripping, disturbing documentary tells a story not only of radiation catastrophe but of lies, fear and exploitation.”
The Tablet
“Jaw-dropping”
The Times
“Stunning… As unmissable as it is harrowing”
The Guardian
“The best thing I’ve seen since Chernobyl”
David Baddiel
“Excellent… truly harrowing”
The Sunday Times
Winner of a Cinema Eye Honors Award
Winner of a BAFTA Craft Award for Editing
Winner of British Film Editors Cut Above Award for Best British Documentary
Winner of Royal Television Society Craft Award for Sound - Entertainment & Non Drama
Winner of the Broadcast Tech Innovation Award for Best Audio Post-production
Winner of Best Trailer at the World Trailer Awards
Nominated for Single Documentary at the BAFTA TV Awards
Nominated for Directing - Factual at the BAFTA Craft Awards
Nominated for an International Documentary Association Award
Nominated for Best Documentary at the Broadcast Awards
Nominated for a Broadcast Digital Award for Best Documentary
Shortlisted for a Grierson in Best Single Documentary International
Nominated for Best Documentary Trailer at the Golden Trailer Awards
Nominated in the Cinematic Feature category at the FOCAL International Awards
The story of Chernobyl told through a newly discovered hoard of dramatic footage filmed at the nuclear plant during the disaster and newly-recorded, deeply personal interviews of those who were there, directed by Emmy Award-winner and Russian-speaker James Jones.
This gripping film tells the story of the disaster and its consequences entirely through extraordinary and immersive archive, shot at great risk in the hours, days, weeks and months after the accident by a handful of cameramen given access to the plant. These cameramen lived side by side with the “liquidators” who went to incredible and often fatal lengths to try to prevent another explosion and make the reactor safe.
The reality of their bravery and heroism is more harrowing than any drama can portray. The footage, most of it never seen before in the West, has only now come to light after an extensive trawl by director James Jones and his colleagues of the state archives and other sources in Ukraine and Russia.
For thirty-five years the story of what happened in April 1986 when the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant melted down has enthralled and horrified. Radio programmes and scripted dramas have all told their version of events. But no-one has made a documentary that reveals the full, shocking reality of this cataclysmic, world changing event – until now.
Though many of the rescue workers died, a surprising number who appear prominently in the footage are still alive today. The film features newly recorded audio interviews with people involved in the original key moments of the footage – their memories of that fateful night and the aftermath haunting but also deeply humane.
Amongst those interviews is Lyudmila Ihnatenko, whose firefighter husband Vasily died days after the accident, and who was pregnant at the time. She went onto lose her baby hours after she was born. “All the radiation I was inhaling, she absorbed it.” From a ten-year-old schoolboy to a Russian general, we see how events at Chernobyl transformed the lives of millions of people.
Soviet propaganda plays out as a backdrop, initially saying nothing of the disaster, Gorbachev eventually appearing to downplay what happened, putting his own citizens and the rest of the world at great risk. The film reveals how many people suffering from radiation poisoning, cancer and other illnesses were told that it had no connection to the accident. The state was in denial and was willing to lie to its own citizens to prevent the truth getting out. This film witnesses the incredible physical suffering of men who had sacrificed themselves for the greater good.
The film shows how Chernobyl and the cover-up that followed sparked unprecedented distrust in the authorities, giving birth to a protest movement in Ukraine which would eventually lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The modern resonance of a disaster which threatened millions of lives but was tragically mishandled by those in authority will have an obvious resonance to the contemporary audience.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes is the full, unadulterated true story of what happened in one of the most iconic but least understood tragedies of the twentieth century.
A Top Hat production for Sky Documentaries and HBO Documentaries.
Film Editor: Rupert Houseman
Producers: Serhiy Solodko and Sasha Odynova
Composer: Uno Helmersson
Researcher: Maria Shevchenko
Line Producers: Joanna Marshall, Philippa Lacey
Executive Producer: Darren Kemp
Commissioning Editor for Sky: Hayley Reynolds
“It’s a wholly cinematic, sensory experience, with straight-ahead reportage electrified by glaring streetlights and a panicked urban wall of sound; it would make a handsome companion piece to Filipino auteur Brillante Mendoza’s recent “Alpha, the Right to Kill,” a fictionalised Duterte-era action film that aimed for grainy docu-realism as much as Jones and Sarbil’s film trades in more sleekly immersive atmospherics.
Production values here are so dazzlingly high that, for entire sequences at a time, riveted viewers may forget to wonder just how Jones and Sarbil managed to force a camera into the fray. Sarbil, a gifted cameraman who won a cinematography Emmy for his and Jones’s 2017 Frontline episode on Mosul, shoots the nighttime raids with a hot, athletic immediacy that the aforementioned Mendoza (or even Michael Mann) would covet in a fictional context; bodies are silhouetted in the glare of emergency lights, though amid the shadows, we also get close-up glimmers of strained faces on all sides of the law. The idea here is not to aestheticize a human rights crisis, but to show the absurd movie-logic shoot-’em-up that Duterte has allowed the Philippines to become, right down to the “Fury Road”-style death’s-head masks worn by the executors. Populist politics can turn all too easily to popcorn ones; “On the President’s Orders” vividly captures the tipping point.”
Guy Lodge, Variety
“Shot with the stark precision and chiaroscuro tones of a Michael Mann film, James Jones & Olivier Sarbil’s OTPO would be one of the most harrowing escapist thrillers of the year if it weren’t for the sombre realisation that the horror captured is entirely, apocalyptically real.”
POV Magazine
"A real life thriller"
One Movie Our Views
“A must-see. A film that plays like a crime thriller... If it was fiction you’d think it was something from a Scorsese film.”
Frameline
"Masterful foray into the dark side of human behaviour."
Docs On Screens
"Chilling, unflinching"
Cinema Axis
"Powerful, wrenching... visually arresting." ****
NOW Toronto
“Cinematic with a capital C”
BiffBamPop
"In this grimly lurid, thriller-like documentary, filmmakers James Jones and Olivier Sarbil have open access to both police and their victims in a town where beat cops have been promoted into death squads."
Original Cin
“Ghosts also haunt James Jones and Olivier Sarbil’s On the President’s Orders, a nail-biting investigative look at Philippines strongman Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly “war on drugs” through both its victims – the battle-scarred families of mostly low-level dealers and addicts rendered collateral damage – as well as, even more shockingly, its remorseless perpetrators.”
Filmmaker Magazine
““On the President’s Orders” is a special documentary that doesn’t try to ask all the questions or provide any possible answers. It simply testifies to our dark age of cruelty and dehumanization. Like the great documentarian duo of the Ross brothers, Jones and Sarbil exhibit great empathy by simply watching and listening to people and places, rather than telling us what to think. And, in this instance, bearing witness to the monstrous policies of the Philippine President, who asks: “’Do not do drugs and kill our children because I will kill you.’ So, what is wrong with that statement?”
God help us if we don’t know the answer.”
Roger Ebert
“On the President’s Orders looks like a thriller from the likes of Michael Mann or Christopher Nolan, and it is just as gripping as Heat (1995) or Inception (2010). This is a slick and stylish documentary, with extraordinarily high production values. This is a documentary that is worthy of your complete attention and focus. You will become immersed in this world of drugs, crime, and corruption.
On the President’s Orders is a film that Hollywood should be envious of and a film that you should definitely seek out. *****”
Filmotomy
“In this explosive cinematic investigation, directors James Jones and Olivier Sarbil get alarmingly close to the battle for the streets and soul of the Philippines. Their cameras stand before both sides — the victimised slum communities and the police squads blithely executing their countrymen from a perverse moral high ground. The staggering visions of violence, shot with a kinetic slickness and immediacy, are so electrifying that viewers will have to remind themselves: this is happening now, this is real.”
Melbourne International Film Festival
“A riveting account of the consequences of unfettered demagoguery.”
The Hollywood Reporter
“One of the most heartbreaking, harrowing pieces of journalism I’ve ever seen. Beautifully and subtly told; damning in its indictments.”
William Brangham, PBS Newshour
“A shockingly alarming investigation produced with the sensibilities of a social realist drama, Sarbil and Jones’ nonfiction warning should petrify U.S. viewers immeasurably.”
LA Times
Nominated for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary at the Emmys
Nominated for the Rory Peck Sony Impact Award
Winner of Best UK Feature at Raindance Film Festival
Winner of Special Jury Prize at HumanDoc Film Festival
Winner of RTS Craft Award for Photography - Documentary
Shortlisted for the Grierson Award for Current Affairs Documentary
The searing story of President Duterte's bloody campaign against drug dealers and addicts in the Philippines, told with unprecedented and intimate access to both sides of the war - the Manila police, and an ordinary family from the slum.
Shot in the style of a thriller, this observational film combines the look and feel of a narrative feature film with a real life revelatory journalistic investigation into a campaign of killings.
The film uncovers a murky world where crime, drugs and politics meet in a deathly embrace - and reveal that although the police have been publicly ordered to stop extra-judicial killings, the deaths continue.
Produced and Directed by James Jones
Filmed and Directed by Olivier Sarbil
Produced by Dan Edge & Raney Aronson-Rath
Edited by Michael Harte
Production Managed by Philippa Lacey
Music composed by Uno Helmersson
FRONTLINE PBS, ARTE France, BBC Storyville and Bertha DOC SOCIETY.
"It is an extraordinary film – insanely brave, but also intimate and human."
Guardian
"Extraordinary film... The bravery, fortitude and insight of the film-makers are admirable, that of their subjects even more so."
Telegraph
"Stunner of a new documentary... Heart-pounding, intimate... considered a contender for an Academy Award for Best Short Documentary... The intense, visceral footage is bracing enough, but the insight into the soldiers can be heart-scalding."
Globe and Mail
"Everyone should watch this. One of the most amazing war documentaries in years."
Byline Festival
"Extraordinarily intimate... An astonishing portrait of urban combat, and a gripping reflection of the universal, eternal truth of warfare - that soldiers fight first and foremost for the soldiers alongside them."
Guardian
In October 2016, an elite team of Iraqi Special Forces was tasked with leading the fight to defeat ISIS in Mosul. It was the beginning of a brutal battle of attrition that was to last almost nine months.
Filmed over the course of the whole campaign, Mosul follows the experiences of four young soldiers: Anmar, a college graduate seeking revenge after his father was the victim of a suicide attack; Hussein, a ruthless sniper and aspiring football player; Jamal, a wise-cracking sergeant; and Amjad, a young recruit excited to be on the frontline.
Full of hope and good intentions at the beginning of the campaign, the soldiers are forced to confront the reality of fighting an elusive and vicious enemy in a city full of trapped civilians who are themselves fearful and suspicious of the army. And with victory in sight, tragedy strikes. When ISIS eventually capitulates, much of the city is destroyed, and the surviving soldiers are left haunted by what they have seen and done.
Winner of The Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Documentary at the Overseas Press Club Awards
Winner of an Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography
Winner of DuPont Gold Baton
Winner of Grand Jury Prize at the Golden Nymphs
Winner of the Venice TV Award for Documentary
Winner of Best Documentary at the Broadcast Awards
Winner of the Frontline Club Award
Nominated for a BAFTA Craft Award in the Cinematography category
Nominated for Television Documentary at the One World Media Awards
Nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary
Nominated for a Grierson Award - Best Current Affairs Documentary
Nominated at the AIBs - International Affairs Documentary
Nominated at the International Documentary Association Awards
Filmed and Directed by Olivier Sarbil
Co-Directed and Produced by James Jones
Produced by Raney Aronson-Rath & Dan Edge
Edited by Ella Newton
Production Managed by Philippa Lacey
Broadcast on PBS Frontline in October 2017
Broadcast on Channel 4 in November 2017
Ten years after cities across the country were gripped by chaos and looting, this feature documentary is a cinematic and revelatory exploration of the largest social unrest in the UK for a generation.
"Outstanding... remarkable programme"
The Times *****
"Superb"
Telegraph
“Meticulous”
Observer
DOCUMENTARY OF THE WEEK
Radio Times
"A searing reminder of a shocking moment"
Sun
"Insightful, balanced and moving"
Mail ****
"Gripping... powerful oral history"
Telegraph
Produced and Directed by James Jones
Cinematographer: Olivier Sarbil
Editor: Rupert Houseman
Producers: Elliott Swinburn, Naomi Notice
Production Managers: Diana Francis, Liz Lee, Elea Huston
Archive Producer: Alex Booth
Executive Producer: Darren Kemp
Music: Uno Helmersson
A Top Hat production for the BBC.
"It might make you angry watching. But James Jones' absorbing documentary remains objective, open-minded and journalistic, allowing the events and people to speak for themselves. And it's all the more powerful for that... Shocking and sad, but an objective portrait of a nation divided by race."
Guardian
"James Jones had access to all sides in Rankin’s trial, including the man himself. Unflinching, open-minded, letting the facts speak loud, this was exemplary film making... If ever argument were needed about the fundamental incompatibility of guns and civilization, it was provided by this harrowing ninety minutes of television." *****
Telegraph
"With unique access to all involved this powerful feature-length film follows Rankin's murder trial in forensic detail"
Mail
"Powerful, harrowing documentary"
Radio Times
"Timely and powerful... It's an issue that has sparked protests and civil unrest. Watching this, you might see why."
Telegraph
This gripping feature-length documentary follows the murder trial of a white police officer who killed an unarmed black teenager against the backdrop of an America more racially divided than it has been for decades.
With unprecedented access to the prosecution and defence, family and friends on both sides and even to the accused former Officer Rankin, this powerful 90-minute documentary from award-winning filmmaker James Jones forensically follows the drama as the trial unfolds and unpicks Rankin’s troubling prior record in the police department. There are no easy answers, no winners, only losers, and everything is played out through the prism of the toxic legacy of race in America.
Nominated for a BAFTA in the Current Affairs category
Nominated at the Royal Television Society TV Journalism Awards
Nominated for a Grierson for Best Single Documentary - International
Filmed, Produced & Directed by James Jones
Producer: Sarah Foudy
Consultant Producer: Jon Swaine
Assistant Producer: Alex Dickerson-Watson
Editors: Christopher Swayne, Todd Downing
Composer: Mat Davidson
Executive Producers: Sarah Waldron, Sam Bagnall
Broadcast on BBC Two in November 2016
Four-part series for Apple TV on the extraordinary rise and fall of Carlos Ghosn.
“Gripping and, yes, deeply reported, often in real time, Wanted is a gripping take on a wild story that provides generous helpings of rich context, a necessary if sometimes overlooked ingredient in nonfiction filmmaking.
It turns out Wanted isn’t just an investigation; it’s also a caper, depicted in reenactments that boast the editing and cinematography chops of an Ocean’s Eleven movie. The series has its cake and eats it, too, blending high-stakes, shoe-leather reporting with thriller sizzle.”
Rolling Stone
“Because it’s not looking for the sugar spike of a quick gotcha moment, Wanted is able to look at not just legal culpability, but also moral. Taylor and others who moved through Ghosn’s orbit, experienced painful ramifications the former business titan didn’t. With its exemplary production values – the urban establishing shots look like a Michael Mann film – this series captures everything you need to know about Carlos Ghosn’s fall from grace. But the care with which it is assembled means that the how and the why are deeply intertwined. There’s nothing left to hide behind.”
Sydney Morning Herald
“Utterly compelling”
Sunday Times
“A compelling study of grey areas and often contrasting truths”
The Financial Times
“For those who prefer their documentaries much glossier, there is this juicy and fascinating story of the automotive industry executive Carlos Ghosn. The tale is a wild one: Ghosn was the head of Nissan and Renault and was arrested in Japan for financial misdeeds. After being held there in what he called unjust conditions, he escaped — in a trunk on a private plane, in a caper orchestrated by a former Green Beret. “Wanted” is elegantly straightforward, letting the outrageousness of the saga unfold with lucid talking-head explanations. If you enjoy high-end moral ambiguity, dig in.”
New York Times
“This twisty, dramatic tale will leave you agog…
A smart take on a riveting tangle of power, money and greed.”
The Guardian
“Riveting… Jones’ engaging docuseries is a snapshot of people and systems that manipulate and exploit for gain, and the myriad others (from confidants and colleagues to conspirators and shareholders) who suffer for their sins.”
Daily Beast
“Incredible true crime documentary… plays out like a Hollywood thriller.”
Daily Mail
“Unfolds like a twisty thriller”
CNN
“Very good… entertaining filmmaking. Bravo.”
Francis Ford Coppola
Director: James Jones
Executive Producers: James Gay-Rees, Martin Conway, Paul Martin
Series Edit Producer: Kate Hampel
Senior Producer: Hannah Poulter
Producer: Kate Hardie-Buckley
Editors: Bjorn Johnson, Chis Nicholls, Sam Bergson, Hamit Shonpal, Franco Bogino, Nic Zimmerman, Simon Mason
Researcher: Vivien Jones
Archive Producers: Barry Purkis, Christina Falk
Production Managers: Alice Cady, Matteo Mauroni
Line Producer: Sarah Smith, Roger Houston
Music: Mogwai
A Box to Box production.
"Gripping"
New York Times
"North Korea is one of the world's most mysterious countries and one of its most dangerous flashpoints. You could learn about it from Dennis Rodman, or you could watch Frontline. Your choice."
USA Today
'Remarkable'
Daily Mail
'Brilliant'
Daily Express
'We no longer have to take anybody’s word for the suffering of ordinary people in the world’s most isolated country. The barely believable, sometimes harrowing footage in last night’s North Korea: Life inside the Secret State enabled us to see it with our own eyes.'
Independent
'Heart-rending accounts of oppression and poverty are presented alongside inspirational examples of human courage'
Metro
'This is an enormously important historical document of a regime potentially at a tipping point'
Rory Peck Awards Judging Panel
Just two years on the job and armed with nuclear weapons, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un is the world’s youngest dictator, ruling one of the world’s most isolated countries with an iron fist.
Like his father and grandfather, he is trying to maintain tight control over what the world sees of North Korea—and what North Koreans see of the world.
But as this film reveals in Secret State of North Korea cracks are starting to appear in the regime’s information barrier, and it’s becoming more porous.
Winner of Rory Peck Award for Features
Nominated for a BAFTA in the Current Affairs category
Nominated at the One World Media Awards in the Television category
Finalist at the Ilaria Alpi Award
Shortlisted for Grierson Award - Best Current Affairs Documentary
Filmed, Produced and Directed by James Jones
Assistant Producer: Nia Nguyen
Editor: Todd Downing
Composer: Jack Ketch
Executive Producers: David Henshaw, Raney Aronson-Rath, David Fanning
Broadcast on Channel 4 and Frontline PBS.
"An excellent film by PBS FRONTLINE highlights how intractable ideological differences between east and west are pushing the country to the brink of civil war."
Christian Science Monitor
In this Emmy-winning documentary, FRONTLINE’s James Jones was on the ground documenting the crisis up-close as unrest in Ukraine provoked one of the biggest confrontations between Russia and the United States since the Cold War.
Winner of a News and Documentary Emmy 2015
Filmed, Produced and Reported by James Jones
Editor: Chris Scurfield
Executive Producers: Eamonn Matthews, Raney Aronson-Rath
"Forensically powerful"
Radio Times
This Royal Television Society-nominated one-hour Panorama special reveals that more British soldiers and veterans killed themselves last year than were killed in action, and that the Ministry of Defence is in denial about the scale of the problem.
Nominated for a Royal Television Society Television Journalism Award
Closing film of Prix Bayeux
Winner of Mind Media Award for Speaking Out
Producer/Director: James Jones
Editor: Todd Downing
Reporter: Toby Harnden
Executive Producers: Steve Hewlett, Rachel Crellin