James Reed

DirectorWriterProducerExecutive Producer

https://vimeo.com/user18193103 Reed’s credits as a director include the multi-award-winning features Jago - A Life Under Water and Rise of the Warrior Apes. In 2021, Reed received further accolade as the director of My Octopus Teacher, the story of a South African filmmaker who forges an unexpected friendship with an octopus, which became a huge critical and audience success on Netflix and went on to win the Best Documentary Feature Award at the 93rd Academy Awards. Jonny Keeling, Head of BBC Studios Natural History Unit, said: “I’m delighted to be embarking on a collaborative development partnership with James Reed and Matt Houghton, the outstanding creative talents of Underdog Films. “Character and emotional storytelling are at the heart of filmmaking both at the NHU and Underdog Films, so we look forward to developing a number of original, ambitious and compelling natural history features for audiences across the globe. I’m hugely excited to welcome James and Matt’s input and perspectives to the NHU’s creative development process and can’t wait to start working with them.” James Reed, Managing Director, Underdog Films, said: “We are very excited to get into this with the NHU. They’ve been at the forefront of natural history film-making for decades and their further growth in the feature doc market will be a fantastic development for the industry as a whole.” Matt Houghton, Underdog Films, adds: “Collaboration and successful partnerships are a key part of Underdog Films’ approach to filmmaking and we’re delighted to be working with the talented storytellers of the NHU. The team has exciting, ambitious plans and we’re looking forward to contributing to stories that will be entertaining, enlightening and thought-provoking.”

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Life on the Edge

Once greatly troubled himself – haunted by a friend’s death and his own brushes with violence – Nuka has turned his life around. He journeys through the remote indigenous settlements of Greenland, speaking about mental health and suicide prevention. Surrounded by vast glaciers and ice sheets, a land at the very edge of the world, Nuka works with a troubled teen, a phlegmatic hunter and a single mother; each has demons they are trying to come to terms with, and a desire to break with cycles of intergenerational trauma.

0.0

Year:

2024

Rise of the Warrior Apes

Filmed over 23 years, Rise of the Warrior Apes tells the epic story of an extraordinary troop of chimpanzees in Ngogo, Uganda – featuring four mighty warriors who rule through moral ambiguity, questionable politics, strategic alliances and destroyed trust.

7.9

Year:

2017

Jago: A Life Underwater

Jago tells the story of an 80 year old sea nomad called Rohani who has spent his life plying the waters of South East Asia’s Coral Triangle. The story is told entirely from Rohani’s perspective, against the spectacular backdrop of the Togian Islands, and recreates events that capture the turning points in his life, as a hunter and as a man. We were able to bring Rohani’s past experiences to life by working closely with his family and friends in the village where he grew up. These are the people you see representing Rohani in the film at various stages in his life. Story telling is a big part of Bajau culture, and a way of preserving traditions through generations, so everyone was very enthusiastic about what we were trying to do and brought lots of ideas of their own, especially Rohani. Although he had never had a camera pointed at him, it certainly wasn’t the first time he’d sat around telling stories. We were just lucky that he let us capture it on film.

6.7

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2015