BBC<\/a>\u2018s Young, British and Anti-Abortion\u00a0and Young, Black and Right-Wing, wants to garner support in making edgier films that are tackling politically-charged content head-on.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tFrom left: Ahmed Peerbux, Poppy Jay and Rajesh Thind for BAFTA Elevate.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9BAFTA\/Kate Peters, 2025<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a unique and privileged position to be in, to go into so many different worlds and have people trust you,\u201d Jay tells THR. \u201cBut it\u2019s frustrating as well, because the gatekeepers who commission these stories, their world view is one way and I see the world in another way because of my skin color and as a woman and my experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShaminder Nahal, head of specialist factual at Channel 4, is one of the key commissioners hoping to shift the industry from within by looking to the talent on BAFTA Elevate. \u201cToday\u2019s world is unbelievably complex, uncertain and polarized, and it\u2019s all of our jobs to engage with that,\u201d says Nahal.<\/p>\n
\n\tAmong Nahal\u2019s recent comissions for Channel 4 are Defiance: Fighting the Far Right, looking at an Asian community in Britain who stood up to a racist campaign of violence and murder between 1976 and 1981, and Britain Under the Nazis: The Forgotten Occupation, about the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe actively want to take risks, be disruptive and challenging,\u201d Nahal says of the commissions she makes in the current climate. \u201cWe want to make a splash, and tell stories that say something about Britain \u2014\u00a0and this has never felt more urgent than now, against a backdrop of a rapidly changing country and a ferociously turbulent world\u2026 [We\u2019re] grappling with changing politics, new technology and so many questions about who we are and what the future is going to be like.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tNahal adds that audiences are increasingly more interested in the history space, mostly thanks to podcasts. Some of Channel 4\u2019s most recent commissions are hoping to reflect this political push-and-pull between past and present. \u201cSeventy-two Films are making a series on Tony Blair, one of our most significant prime ministers,\u201d Nahal says. \u201cAnd Swan Films are telling the story of the extraordinary Mitford sisters and through their lives we\u2019ll see some of the major events of the 20th century playing out. [They are] the Kardashians of their age, also deeply controversial, some of them being close to Hitler and steeped in the rise of British fascism \u2014\u00a0all of which offers a fascinating perspective on today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBut contrary to what some might think, insiders say many viewers aren\u2019t always looking for an escape from current times, and do in fact want to be confronted with what\u2019s happening in the world, as long as it\u2019s being approached in a fresh way.<\/p>\n
\n\tRajesh Thind, producer and director of Channel 4\u2019s Defiance: Fighting the Far Right doc, tells THR that viewers are desperate for new stories. \u201cIt makes really good business and commercial and creative sense to be seeking out stories that haven\u2019t been told,\u201d he says. \u201cIn a time like this, documentaries have a real role to play. We\u2019re all living through this,\u201d he says of the tumultuous political landscape, rise of AI and billionaire-backed government departments (see: Elon Musk\u2019s Doge branch, which he has now stepped back from). Thind added: \u201cAnd we all need to try and make sense of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tPeerbux, producer of 2025\u2019s Grenfell: Uncovered, says that working on the Netflix U.K.-commissioned film was about making people angry. The feature is a bleak exploration of the decisions made that led to a London tower block being engulfed by a fire in the summer of 2017.<\/p>\n
\n\tDirector Olaide Sadiq drags into the spotlight the incompetence and greed of officials and companies, among them the local council, who erected decorative, cheap and highly flammable cladding around the tower. When it caught fire 72 people perished \u2014\u00a0a majority of them minorities who lived in the culturally diverse London neighborhood \u2014\u00a0in an entirely avoidable tragedy. The U.K. parliament later commissioned an independent review of building regulations and fire safety as the government investigates tower blocks with similar cladding. Efforts to replace the cladding on these buildings, a side effect of the Grenfell-triggered U.K. cladding crisis, are ongoing.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMillions of people won\u2019t read an inquiry report,\u201d Peerbux says about making Grenfell\u2019s story accessible. \u201cIt\u2019s technical, it\u2019s complicated. But lots of people subscribe to Netflix and it\u2019s reaching people in a way that you might not otherwise be able to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Grenfell: Uncovered\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Netflix<\/p>\n
\n\tThe British are no strangers to bringing about political and societal change with the help of sincere television. ITV\u2019s\u00a0narrative feature Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office\u00a0depicted how hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted of theft \u2014 the true cause was a faulty IT system \u2014 between 1999 and 2015. The series, with Toby Jones in the titular role, prompted such outrage among viewers that the government exonerated victims and compensated them in thousands of pounds. Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells was publicly vilified and stripped of her CBE, a prestigious honor awarded by the King.<\/p>\n
\n\tSadiq and Peerbux\u2019s Grenfell project went on to win the audience award at the 2025 Sheffield DocFest.\u00a0It\u2019s something, Peerbux says, that necessitated patience. Many documentaries these days are \u201cquick turnaround,\u201d produced in a matter of days in order to capitalize on a story while its fresh in the news cycle, and in people\u2019s minds, too. \u201cSome untruths, mistakes, can can slip in there if people are really squeezed and you\u2019ve got a few weeks to look at this enormous issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe sings Netflix\u2019s praises: \u201cWe had months to really do this properly and to digest the research, to speak with people on the ground and comb through the primary documents in minute detail\u2026 And actually, for Netflix to have commissioned something like Grenfell: Uncovered, it\u2019s not what you\u2019d necessarily expect from that platform.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s clearly an appetite for it,\u201d he says of political storytelling. \u201cYou can\u2019t say that, \u2018Oh no, people will be switched off by it.\u2019 [Grenfell: Uncovered] has been number one [on Netflix in the U.K.] for days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tPeerbux hopes it signals to other commissioners to take risks, and rely on filmmakers that pore over the fine details. \u201cI\u2019ve been completely glued to my screen and I\u2019m horrified,\u201d he adds about getting his news from social media. \u201cNo one\u2019s really sure of anything anymore. There\u2019s reassurance in the fact that something has been well-resourced. People want to go somewhere trustworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThind, Jay and Peerbux have found solace in BAFTA Elevate. \u201cWe\u2019re becoming a little production unit,\u201d Thind says. \u201cOne of my fellow cohort colleagues came and helped me on a shoot recently for a new feature doc about a musician that I\u2019m starting on my own back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAdds Jay: \u201cWe have information at our fingertips in a way that the generations above probably didn\u2019t. And we want solutions. We want to disrupt what we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile making Young, British and Anti-Abortion, she ran into an issue that\u2019s becoming an increasingly difficult hurdle to clear for documentarians in the age of social media. \u201cI remember a [potential interviewee] who was so, so good. And I had to say no politely, because she would have been absolutely trolled and ripped to pieces online [if featured in the film], and her mental health would have suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s a different world for documentarians who are dealing with new problems all the time. Jay says she wants to keep pushing the boundaries. \u201cYou have to really delicately tread a balance between what you want to make, and pick your battles,\u201d she says. \u201cThe BBC are under so much scrutiny now. They\u2019re brilliant in many ways, but it can be a challenge, because they are scrutinized by The Daily Mail, they\u2019re scrutinized by the public, and they can\u2019t win.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhich is why I\u2019m like, \u2018Just fuck everyone and make the thing that you want to make.\u2019 Because you\u2019re damned if you do and you\u2019re damned if you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s no secret that the film and TV industry is getting more risk-averse. The projects awarded generous budgets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,18203,1576,13958,134,3389,344,3586],"class_list":{"0":"post-17010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bafta","11":"tag-bbc","12":"tag-documentaries","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-international","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}