EU Humanitarian Aid
in Colombia

I directed filmed and edited 3 films set in Colombia for the Associated Press and EU Aid.
La Guajira is a remote desert region, home to the indigenous Wayuu people. A humanitarian crisis has resulted from seven years of drought. The 3 films tell stories of how 3 different families are recovering with help from EU Aid and their humanitarian partners: UNICEF, Oxfam, Action Against Hunger and UNFAO.  Together they are delivering life-saving food, water and agricultural assistance, providing health care for those at risk no matter how isolated they are.

The Wolf Within (Pilot)

The Wolf Within is a documentary pilot with dog behaviourist Nigel Reed (AKA The Dog Guardian).  Nigel meets a group of disengaged students from a pupil referral unit and hopes to engage them by passing on his knowledge.  He sets them a challenge to each train an unruly dog and save the dog being abandoned by it's owner while also hoping it will help to address their own behaviour.  
Produced in 2008, I directed and filmed the programme with my production company Seal Films.

The Big Steppe

The Big Steppe is a documentary looking at the cultural transformation of Mongolia as centuries old nomadic farming lifestyles are rapidly changing.  Shooting recently completed on the film and it is currently in post-production.

​​Climate change is causing temperatures in Mongolia to rise more than 3 times faster than anywhere else in the world.  This acceleration is causing visible changes to Mongolian grasslands and water sources.  Livestock are dying in great numbers and many rural families are abandoning their traditional, nomadic, pastoral lifestyle in search of opportunities in the rapidly growing capital Ulaanbaatar.  We met communities in the north and south of Mongolia to understand how several environmental disasters such as extreme winters ​and droughts have affected their lives.

Yagé is Our Life

Winner of the Respect Human Rights Film Festival and currently showing at festivals internationally,

Yagé is Our Life is a documentary film set in the Putumayo region of Colombia.

For centuries the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon have been using yagé (sometimes known as ayahuasca) for the health, social cohesion and spiritual guidance of their communities. Yagé is rich in the potent psychedelic substance DMT and for these indigenous groups it is sacred, allowing them access to ancient wisdom and the spirits of nature.  In their ceremonies, the taitas or traditional doctors use yagé to treat their patients for physical

and emotional illnesses and as a guide for making decisions.

The communities are now facing many new threats to their traditional way of life. Primarily, the commercialisation of their yagé medicine and foreign pressures exerted on their homelands by industrialised civilisation.

This film gives indigenous leaders from the region a platform to discuss these issues and the importance

of yagé as a living tradition in their communities.

I spent 1 month filming in the Putumayo region working with Ancestral Seeds to shoot the documentary,

working as Shooting PD and Editor on the project.