Emmy, Peabody and BAFTA-winning producer-directors Gesbeen Mohammad and Robin Barnwell have launched Sisu Pictures, an independent company dedicated to making documentaries about major stories from around the world.
The company begins with two films airing on the same night: the BBC’s Iran: The People’s Story and Channel 4’s The Taliban’s War on Women. Both documentaries examine authoritarian regimes and were filmed largely in secret because of the risks involved in reporting from Iran and Afghanistan.
Mohammad, Sisu’s co-founder, and Barnwell, its creative director, previously worked on documentaries including Mariupol: The People’s Story and Inside Russia: Putin’s War at Home. They said factual verification would be central to the new company’s work, particularly when covering countries that are difficult for journalists to access.
Barnwell said Sisu would often look back at major events and approach them through personal stories. Examples include examining Afghanistan five years after the Taliban takeover or revisiting the consequences of the September 11 attacks 25 years later.
The two launch documentaries reflect that approach. Iran: The People’s Story investigates a crackdown on dissent following a January massacre and examines how the regime has used war to strengthen its control. The Taliban’s War on Women follows Afghans in exile who try to help women seeking to escape increasingly repressive conditions under Taliban rule.
Barnwell said both films address the struggle between truth and falsehood by giving people a platform to describe their experiences and bringing those accounts to a broad audience. Mohammad added that bearing witness to people’s lives, rather than making statements on their behalf, helps preserve the integrity of the journalism.
Sisu is also developing two undisclosed projects, whose details are being kept secret to protect people involved on the ground. The company is considering additional retrospective documentaries for potential pitches to platforms including Netflix and HBO.
The founders said worsening funding conditions in current affairs programming helped motivate them to establish their own company. With budgets stagnating and the market shrinking, they wanted greater control over financing and the ability to make focused, independently raised films.
For the Iran and Afghanistan documentaries, Sisu is working with co-producers including French-German broadcaster Arte and an American partner that has not yet been identified. Mohammad and Barnwell said it had become uncommon for a single public broadcaster to fully finance complex documentaries about distant regimes that can take years to produce.
Despite the financial pressures, Barnwell said the success of recent investigative documentaries demonstrates continued demand for serious factual reporting. The filmmakers also emphasized their commitment to impartiality and said the time required to verify information has increased significantly.
Mohammad said social media has made it harder for journalists to maintain a clear distinction between reporting, activism and advocacy. She argued that filmmakers should be transparent about their perspective, contributors and editorial choices. For Sisu, she said, the guiding principle is to report the facts fairly and complete the work.
Sources: Deadline.