Factual Filmmaking with Ron McCullagh & Insight News TV
Workshop Tutor Profiles
Ron McCullagh is the Managing Director of Insight News Television, a multiple-award winning documentary production company that has reported from over 100 countries worldwide. Before founding Insight, Ron McCullagh worked as a reporter for the BBC for 10 years and was one of the first journalists to film his own material on a Hi8 camera. He has written for numerous publications including The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph.
Awards: In 1982 Ron McCullagh won the Medical Journalists Association Radio Documentary of the Year Award. In 1989 Ron McCullagh was nominated by the BBC for the Sony Radio Journalist of the Year awards, in 1998 at the One World Broadcasting Trust Media Awards he won the UNICEF UK Award for the Advancement of Children's Rights for the report on child workers in Bangladesh which he reported, filmed, produced and edited and in 2000, the documentary CRY FREETOWN with Sorious Samura which he directed has so far won 14 major awards - including an Emmy and a BAFTA. In 2004 he won the Rory Peck Freelancers Choice award for the "important role he has played in supporting freelancers and enabling them to develop".
In the past few years, McCullagh has been the Executive Producer for the LIVING WITH.series, five films made with Sorious Samura for Channel Four's DISPATCHES. In 2007, he co-directed BLOOD ON THE STONE, a documentary commissioned by Warner Brothers to accompany the recently released Hollywood film BLOOD DIAMOND starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2008, he exec produced the Panorama film ADDICTED TO AID, which revealed how Western aid money is being lost, stolen and frittered away.
Sorious Samura is a renowned filmmaker whose documentaries have been recognised worldwide, both for the courage of their photographic journalism and the impact of their message.
Samura's debut documentary CRY FREETOWN, is a gripping portrayal of atrocities committed during Sierra Leone's civil war. Risking his life to film the systematic murder of his fellow countrymen, Samura describes what he calls "a nation that was being murdered, a country that was dying, that was being left to die by the Western world, by the so called developed world".
In EXODUS Samura traveled to Nigeria, Mali, The Sahara, Morocco and Spain as he followed African exiles in their attempt to make their way to the "promised land" of Europe. In 2002, Samura first reported on the shocking plight of refugees being sexually abused by UN aid workers in Guinea. The news feature caused a stir amongst the international aid community and contributed to the implementation of a new code of conduct which explicitly prohibited sexual exploitation.
Samura's ground breaking project, the LIVING WITH. series, saw him setting out to live under the same conditions as those suffering extraordinary adversity. In LIVING WITH HUNGER, Samura moved into a remote location in Ethiopia and for a month survived on the same meager diet as the rest of the villagers. In LIVING WITH REFUGEES, he documented the harsh realities of living as one of Darfur's countless refugees in the Sudan-Chad border. LIVING WITH AIDS saw Samura work as a ward orderly in a rural Zambian hospital where the majority of patients were HIV. In LIVING WITH ILLEGALS, Sorious followed a group of African illegal immigrants as they journeyed from the forests of Morocco to the UK in search of a better life.
In 2007, Samura made HOW TO GET AHEAD IN AFRICA, for Channel Four's DISPATCHES strand, which confronted the problem of endemic corruption in Africa. This programme provided a sober portrait of how modern Africa really works, where the voiceless poverty stricken millions, have had their futures stolen by their corrupt governments, aided and abetted by the West.
In 2007 Samura also acted as consultant on the Hollywood film BLOOD DIAMOND starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and was commissioned by Warner Brothers to make the documentary BLOOD ON THE STONE to accompany the feature film. In 2008, Samura's film ADDICTED TO AID revealed how Western aid money is lost stolen and frittered away, produced for BBC's PANORAMA strand.
Samura's films have won many prestigious awards including: a BAFTA; the Rory Peck and Mohamed Amin Awards; two Emmy Awards; four One World Media Awards; three Amnesty International Media Awards; a Columbia-DuPont Award; a Peabody Award; the Prix Europa; the Japan Prize; the Harry Chapin Media Award; two Overseas Press Club Awards; a Bronze World Medal at the New York Festival and a Golden Nymph at the Monte Carlo Film and Television Festival. In 2006 he was named "Broadcast Journalist of the Year" at the One World Media Awards.
Click here to return to main course information page.
