Sky has announced a slate of four upcoming documentaries, including a film on social media star-turned criminal defendant Andrew Tate, and a series that leverages the archives of David Frost, one of television’s greatest interviewers.
Doom Scroll: Andrew Tate & The Dark Side of the Internet examines the former kickboxer who styles himself online as the “king of toxic masculinity.” He and his brother Tristan face allegations of human trafficking in Romania, in additional to potential sexual misconduct charges in the U.K.
“Andrew Tate’s meteoric rise to infamy has provoked global uproar,” notes a release from Sky, “but the controversial figure is also a terrifying symptom of the increasingly fractured world in which we live, propelled by the social media platforms beneath our fingertips.
“Doom Scroll: Andrew Tate & The Dark Side of the Internet goes beyond the headlines to explore how and why someone with such toxic views can take hold of so many millions of young followers. The film highlights the dark influence of social media platforms and how their carefully-crafted algorithms have shaped our world today.”
The Andrew Tate doc is a Sandpaper Films production commissioned for Sky Documentaries; Liz Mermin directs and Nicky Lessware produces. It will debut later this year on Sky Documentaries, the British pay television channel, and streaming platform NOW, available in the U.K. and Ireland.
Also set for release later this year is a six-part docuseries under the working title The Frost Tapes, based on groundbreaking interviews done by the late David Frost. The series is a Sky Studios production, co-produced with Paradine Productions and White Horse Pictures, and made in collaboration with Frost’s son, Wilfred.
“Each episode [is] anchored around Frost’s interviews with one key personality, providing a springboard into deeply relevant subject matters,” Sky says. “Drawing from Frost’s archive of more than 10,000 era-defining interviews, many of which have been lost for a generation, the documentary takes viewers on an immersive journey through the most important moments of the late 20th century via Frost’s personal and revealing conversations with the protagonists, with striking parallels to today.”
Wilfred Frost said in a statement, “For the last decade since Dad died I have focused on accumulating more rights to his interviews and recovering and restoring lost footage, waiting for the right moment and partner to showcase it. That moment is now, and in Sky Studios and White Horse Pictures I feel blessed to have better partners than I could ever have dreamt of. While this series is based on Dad’s archive of over 10,000 interviews – many of which have not been seen for decades – it is not a typical archive show. Every conversation is carefully selected to be staggeringly relevant today, and told by blockbuster names from The Beatles to Jane Fonda to Muhammad Ali to Richard Nixon.”
Among those taking part in the series are Michael Sheen, who portrayed David Frost in the Ron Howard film Frost/Nixon, as well as former Prime Minister Tony Blair (played by Sheen, coincidentally, in The Queen), Liam Neeson, Joanna Lumley, and Khalilah Ali, former wife of the late heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali.
The Sky slate includes two other projects: docuseries The Body Next Door, and the feature doc Adam Hills: Foot Fault (scroll for details on those).
Poppy Dixon, Sky’s Director of Documentaries and Factual, commented, “These new commissions showcase the breadth of content we have on the Sky Documentaries channel. With exclusive archive, unprecedented access and a deep dive into the untold, we feel so privileged to be working with some of the best creatives in the industry, to bring these important and compelling stories to life.”
Sky made the announcement of the four projects at Sheffield DocFest, the U.K.’s leading nonfiction film festival, which opened on Wednesday (it runs through Monday). Below are capsule descriptions of each film/series:
The Frost Tapes (w/t)
6 x 45” (released as 2 x miniseries)
Pulling from an archive of over 10,000 interviews recorded over more than 50 years, The Frost Tapes (w/t) centers on era-defining David Frost interviews, unveiling a fresh perspective on today through the battles of yesterday. Seen through Frost’s eyes, we encounter the mid-to-late 20th century as a furnace of change and uncertainty that continues to permeate current affairs.
Across the series, Frost’s career acts as a spine, as we journey through recent history via his astonishing rise, with commentary and insights from the family and famous faces who knew him best. Each episode is anchored around Frost’s interviews with one key personality, providing a springboard into deeply relevant subject matters; from explosive encounters with Muhammad Ali discussing race to a forensic look at the infamous Nixon tapes, outtakes and all.
Time and again we’ll find Frost with a front-row seat to a key moment in history, always with a piercing set of questions at the ready and the easy charm to elicit a revealing response.
This archive footage is supplemented by interviews with an extraordinary list of new contributors including Michael Sheen, Liam Neeson, Joanna Lumley, Khalilah Ali and Tony Blair, who help uncover Frost’s incredible life and career as one of the nation’s most renowned television hosts and journalists.
The Frost Tapes (w/t) is a Sky Studios production, co-produced with Paradine Productions and White Horse Pictures for Sky Documentaries. The Sky Original series is commissioned by Zai Bennett, Managing Director of Content and Poppy Dixon, Director of Documentaries and Factual. Hayley Reynolds is the Commissioning Editor and Ziyaad Desai the Assistant Commissioning Editor. The series is directed by Matthew Hill, Liz Mermin and Francis Longhurst. Executive Producers are Danielle Peck for Sky Studios, Wilfred Frost for Paradine Productions, and Nigel Sinclair and Cassidy Hartmann for White Horse Pictures.
The Body Next Door
3 x 60”
Produced by All3Media company RAW (The Tinder Swindler, Three Identical Strangers, and The Man Who Played With Fire), The Body Next Door is a captivating three-part documentary series that explores one of the most bizarre and shocking true crime stories of the past decade.
In the heart of the Welsh Valleys, the quiet village of Beddau is known for its solidarity and resilience. With around 7,000 residents, it’s a place where everyone knows each other’s business—or so they think.
In November 2015, this peace is shattered by an astonishing discovery. What begins as a seemingly harmless prank involving a medical skeleton takes a horrifying turn when it is revealed that the ‘skeleton’ is, in fact, a real human body. The male corpse, meticulously wrapped in over 40 layers of plastic, is found in the secure garden of a quiet residential block.
With no matching DNA, fingerprints, or dental records, the identity of the deceased remains a mystery—as if the body had fallen from the sky. The case poses not just a “whodunnit” but also a “who is it?” The villagers share their bewilderment and horror. As the news spreads, the locals live in fear, thinking there is a killer on the loose.
The police investigation leads to the discovery of an unexpected suspect: a sweet old neighbour with a hidden past full of lies, trauma, and dark secrets. What emerges is a gripping and tragic murder mystery intertwined with a dramatic family saga.
The Body Next Door takes viewers through this extraordinary narrative, filled with unbelievable twists and turns, revealing a complex case that made headline news and sent shockwaves from the Welsh Valleys to the suburbs of New Zealand.
The Body Next Door is a RAW production commissioned for Sky Documentaries by Zai Bennett, Managing Director of Content, Poppy Dixon, Director of Documentaries and Factual and Tom Barry, Commissioning Editor in association with All3Media International. The series is directed by Gareth Johnson and produced by Phelan Glen, Executive Producers are Louise Norman and Keeley Van Dyke for RAW.
Doom Scroll: Andrew Tate & The Dark Side of the Internet
1 x 120”
How does a self-professed misogynist become one of the world’s most influential people, and remain so even after being charged with rape and human trafficking? Andrew Tate’s meteoric rise to infamy has provoked global uproar, but the controversial figure is also a terrifying symptom of the increasingly fractured world in which we live, propelled by the social media platforms beneath our fingertips.
Doom Scroll: Andrew Tate & The Dark Side of the Internet goes beyond the headlines to explore how and why someone with such toxic views can take hold of so many millions of young followers. The film highlights the dark influence of social media platforms and how their carefully-crafted algorithms have shaped our world today. The documentary speaks with his critics and those who know him, along with some of the architects of the social media algorithms which came to allow extreme, hateful and misogynistic content to proliferate – all in the pursuit of profit for the platforms. In a new look at the dark side of the internet, the film uncovers the online forces boosting extreme content and catapulting inflammatory figures like Andrew Tate to worldwide attention, and how this content can spill over into shocking real-world harm.
Doom Scroll: Andrew Tate & The Dark Side of the Internet is a Sandpaper Films production commissioned for Sky Documentaries by Zai Bennett, Managing Director of Content, Poppy Dixon, Director of Documentaries and Factual and Tom Barry, Commissioning Editor. Gilberte Phanor is the Assistant Commissioning Editor. The film is directed by Liz Mermin and produced by Nicky Lessware. Executive Producers are Henry Singer, Susannah Price and Arthur Cary for Sandpaper Films.
Adam Hills: Foot Fault
1 x 60”
Back when Adam Hills was 18 years old he made an unusual career decision…he quit his job as a professional tennis coach (and any ambitions of being a pro) to pursue his dream of becoming a stand up comedian. He may have decided to ditch his racquet for a microphone, but Adam’s love for tennis has never disappeared. The problem is that tennis hasn’t always returned the passion that Adam and thousands of other players with disabilities have for the game.
Wheelchair Tennis is now a fixture at the Grand Slams and in the Paralympics, but for players with a range of disabilities like Adam’s, who can’t or don’t want to play their favourite sport in a wheelchair, there’s still no competitive representation in the elite-level tournaments. This Sky Original documentary tracks Adam’s global campaign to make some noise about a growing form of the sport – Para-Standing Tennis – and its potential as a future Grand Slam and Paralympic event.
His journey takes him via some of the most famous tennis locations in the world, meeting and playing with former Grand Slam winners, as well as uncovering the barriers faced by aspiring tennis players with disabilities who want to be included by their sport at the highest level. Adam also gets stuck into some serious competition along the way, with the aim of achieving his life-long dream of becoming a World Champion. As he says himself, “being a comedian is all about having ridiculous ideas, then seeing how far you can take them!”
Adam Hills: Foot Fault is a Noah Media Group production commissioned for Sky Documentaries by Zai Bennett, Managing Director of Content, Poppy Dixon, Director of Documentaries and Factual and Tom Barry, Commissioning Editor. The documentary is directed and produced by Emma Everitt. Executive Producers are Richard Makinson and Torquil Jones for Noah Media Group.
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