Selected work — stories that refuse to look away

Six projects that carry the practice: Article 12, a feature documentary nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the Locarno Film Festival; Can I Hack It?, made around Mr. Robot; Anuk’s Fix, on biotech; High Society for VICE; Ethiopia’s Last Crocodile Hunters; and Fakes, Frauds & Scammers.

They differ in form — feature, series, short investigation — and in who commissioned them, but not in method. Each began with an access problem: something a party with resources would clearly have preferred not to be filmed, and a route in that had to be built patiently rather than simply requested. The editorial work starts well before a camera is involved and often outlasts the shoot by months.

These are the films to watch first if you are considering a commission. They show the range of subject matter, and more usefully they show what the work looks like when the subject is uncooperative — which is the condition most of it is made under, and the one that separates films that get finished from films that get abandoned halfway through.