Kevin Toolis

Kevin Toolis is the Emmy-nominated director/producer of the entire five part Cult of the Suicide Bomber series and founder of manyriversfilms.

Toolis was an investigative reporter with The Guardian magazine for ten years and is the author of a classic account of the Irish Troubles Rebel Hearts: Journeys Within the IRA’s Soul.

Kevin has also written for the New York Times Magazine, The Observer, Daily Mail, Daily Express and the Daily Mirror.

Kevin began making documentary films in the mid-nineties. His reporting and producing credits for Channel 4 and the BBC include Getting Away With Murder, The Devil Amongst Us, Circus Days, Circus Nights, Africa’s Schindler’s List, Anatomy of Attack, Cult of the Suicide Bomber, Car Bomb and The Big Heist.

Most recently he produced and directed a BBC Panorama: The Trauma Industry.

Dea Birkett

Dea Birkett in Georgetown, Malaysia

Dea Birkett is a writer and broadcaster. Her weekly Travelling with Kids column appeared in the Guardian for over five years. She is a regular contributor to the Guardian and BBC Radio 4. Dea is Creative Director of manyriversfilms, an Emmy-nominated documentary film production company.

She is author of seven books, including Jella. A Woman at Sea in a Man’s World (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), about her voyage on a cargo ship from West Africa; Serpent in Paradise (shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award), about her time on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific, home of the few remaining descendents from the mutiny on The Bounty; and Spinsters Abroad. Victorian Lady Explorers (“subtle, acute, fascinating” Sunday Times). She has recently been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Dea has a monthly business travel column, as well as a monthly on-line family travel column on www.takethefamily.com.

She has worked with the National Portrait Gallery on Off the Beaten Track. Three Centuries of Women Travellers, producing a book to accompany the exhibition of the same name. She is director of Kids in Museums.

She is Creative Director of manyriversfilms and co-director of TextWorkshop, running writing courses for museum and gallery professionals.

www.deabirkett.com www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk www.manyriversfilms.co.uk www.textworkshop.co.uk See www.guardian.co.uk for some of Dea’s recent articles.
	Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travellers	Spinsters Abroad	Serpent in Paradise	Amazonian: Penguin Book of Women’s New Travel Writing

Ian Cobain

Award winning investigative reporter Ian Cobain of The Guardian was guest speaker on the March workshop and spoke in detail about his career and how he uses many different public information sources in his ground breaking reporting.

“Meeting such a respected investigative journalist added very much to an otherwise brilliant day. People on future courses would benefit immensely, as I did, if he were to appear again.” workshop participant

David Modell

Bafta winner documentary director David Modell is a renowned award winning stills photographer and director of an outstanding series of Channel 4 films including Battle Scarred, Being Pamela and Young, Nazi and Proud.

‘David’s talk and his descriptions of how he sought out, and interacted with his subjects, was totally brilliant. A real highlight in what was a fascinating and inspiring day. At last I met people who were truly passionate about what they did and why they did it. Even better they also told us how we could do the same with our own lives. It renewed my faith in why I wanted to be a journalist’ Louise, a workshop participant.

Tory Story

Jonathan Olley

Jonathan Olley (b.1967) is a documentary photographer based in the UK

Jonathan Olley (b.1967) is a documentary photographer based in the UK.

He studied at the Chelsea School of Art in London and at the University of Wales School of Documentary Photography, Newport. As well as being a husband and father Olley’s many interests include being an amateur pilot and mechanical engineer.

Olley’s work has been widely exhibited and collected, most notably by the Imperial War Museum-London, the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art)-London, Museo Carrillo Gil-Mexico City, Tate; (Britain & Modern)-London. His awards include two first place prizes at the World Press Photo, a Bronze and Silver award at the Association of Photographers for reporting from the war in Iraq and a journey along England’s sea wall respectively and the Observer/Hodge Award for photojournalism made during the siege of Sarajevo.

John Sweeney

Award-winning journalist and author John Sweeney

Award-winning journalist and author John Sweeney has worked as an investigative journalist for BBC’s Panorama since 2001, on films including ‘Scientology and Me’, ‘Tax Me If You Can’ and ‘Cot Death Murders: The Witch Hunt’. Before joining the BBC, John worked for twelve years at The Observer, where he covered wars and revolutions in countries including Iraq, Chechnya, Burundi and Bosnia.

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