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Exclusive: “We have always said we want to do New York Post on the outside, New York Times on the inside.”

That is the company vision laid down by Susannah Price, the head of documentary producer Sandpaper Films, which has explored recent subjects including Taylor Swift, Andrew Tate and Karen Read. Last week, its Netflix feature A Deadly American Marriage was named the streamer’s most-watched unscripted movie of 2025 so far with 32.3 million views.

Price and her Sandpaper co-founder Henry Singer were speaking to Deadline as the Channel 4 documentary on global superstar Swift was announced. From the day of Sandpaper’s launch five years back, Price and Singer said they would approach popular subjects with an investigative touch, hence the comparison to the two contrasting New York publications.

“We have a strand of smart documentaries about famous people that are analytical, truly independent, not made with the celebrity, and not biopics,...

The U.K.’s Channel 4 will pack two decades of success into a new, two-part documentary series, tentatively titled Taylor. Directed by Guy King, the docuseries will explore Taylor Swift’s evolution during her explosive rise to the top of pop stardom, utilizing additions from a “rare archive” and commentary from experts and fans.

“Taylor Swift is an unprecedentedly powerful 21st-century voice for women and young people,” King shared in a statement, per Deadline. “Under the microscope of social media since the earliest days of MySpace and Tumblr, she...

Exclusive: A Taylor Swift documentary series is officially coming to Channel 4.

The network will explore the “global phenomenon” of the world’s highest-grossing music performer via the two-parter, it said, confirming reports from several months back.

Taylor [working title] will dig deep across the musician’s 20-year career, a period that has seen her transcend the realm of pop star to become a cultural icon. Through interviews with high-profile commentators, industry insiders and fans, the documentary examines the forces that have shaped her trajectory and the devoted community she inspires. Channel 4 said “rare archive” will reveal fresh insights into Swift and her story, as the series charts her journey from ambitious teen with towering dreams to one of the most influential and scrutinized figures of our time.

Swift needs no introduction but the singer has generated mind-bending press coverage over the past few years and has an enormous global fanbase. She...

Netflix is going to dive deep into the death of Boston police officer John O’Keefe in a new three-part docuseries.

The Canton, Massachusetts, police officer was found unresponsive in the snow on January 29, 2022, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. O’Keefe’s then-girlfriend, Karen Read, became the suspect and was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death.

Read pleaded not guilty to all charges, with her legal team arguing that she was framed as part of a conspiracy by civilians and law enforcement to protect the real killers.

The murder trial was declared a mistrial on July 1, 2024, after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. Norfolk County Prosecutors have announced that they intend to retry the case, while the Defense has filed to dismiss two of the charges.

Victoria Stable, a legendary archivist, played a crucial role in ensuring historical accuracy in all six seasons of The Crown. Stable's knowledge and ability to find rare footage helped give The Crown its solid reputation. Season 6 of The Crown is dedicated to Stable, who sadly passed away in 2023, and her contributions are irreplaceable to the series.

Viewers who have watched the latest episodes of The Crown might be wondering who Victoria Stable is — and why The Crown season 6 is dedicated to her. Netflix's prestigious, multi-Emmy Award-winning drama returned for the first part of its sixth and final season, offering four new episodes that mainly orbit around Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki), now Prince Charles' (Dominic West) ex-wife, and her tragic death. Of course, the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) still looms large, and will remain the key focus of the drama's season 6, volume 2 — a six-episode run...

After uncovering archival footage filmed by her psychologist father in ‘90s Germany, director Zora Kuettner began investigating his radical treatment of mental illness, and the stories she spent her entire life listening to. The result is “Don’t Call Me Mad,” an examination of not only Dr. Kuettner’s visionary treatment methods, but how his past influenced his relationship with his daughter.

The project, selected as part of the IDFA Forum Pitch program, is Kuettner’s first feature film and is produced by BFI Vision Award-winning Loran Dunn of Delaval Film, and executive produced by Charlie Phillips, former head of video at the Guardian, and Sandpaper Film’s Henry Singer.

“I think this film has always been inside of me and now felt like the right moment to make it happen,” Kuettner says. “I believe that, as a woman, if you are even remotely organized and have a good head on your shoulders,...

A new series is set to examine the two official investigations into Princess Diana’s death.

The British royal died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 at the age of 36. The French Brigade Criminelle opened an investigation in 1997 immediately following the accident while the Metropolitan Police undertook their own investigation seven years later in 2004.

Although the accident was investigated by officials on both sides of the Channel, Diana’s death has continued to attract wild conspiracy theories over the decades.

Now Channel 4 has commissioned “Investigating Diana: Death in Paris” (still a working title) from Sandpaper Films in co-production with Discovery+. which is being billed as a police procedural docu-series.

Directed by Will Jessop and Barnaby Pell, the four-part series will speak to a number of top detectives in both the U.K. and France, many of whom have never spoken publicly before, in an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

Director James Marsh is set to direct a new hybrid animated documentary feature for Submarine and Sandpaper Films.

“Oasis, Saving the Baghdad Zoo” (working title), is a feature-length animated documentary partly based on “Babylon’s Ark,” the book about a year-long rescue mission of animals abandoned across Baghdad by Saddam Hussein and his son Uday.

Billed as a 21st century Noah’s Ark, the film will show how a team of American soldiers, Iraqi zookeepers, and international volunteers tended to lions, camels, bears, exotic birds, monkeys, pigs and even an ocelot in the middle of a brutal war, risking their own lives in the process.

The zoo was first abandoned during 2003’s Battle of Baghdad, when Hussein’s troops battled the U.S. military. Amid the chaos and violence, a team of compassionate volunteers set out to find the zoo’s missing inhabitants, including a pride of lions tracked down...

Prince William has described how he felt the presence of his late mother Princess Diana as he and brother Prince Harry marched behind her coffin at her funeral.

The prince, who was just 15 at the time of his mother’s death almost 20 years ago, is speaking out in a documentary on the BBC called Diana, 7 Days which airs on Aug. 27.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, that walk,” William says. “It felt like she was almost walking along beside us to get us through it.”

In the documentary, Harry recounted meeting members of the public...

Princes William and Harry are sharing more of their mother's story.

The royals revisit the week following the death of their mother, Princess Diana, in the BBC-commissioned special, Diana, 7 Days.

Related: Prince William and Prince Harry Open Up About Princess Diana's Parenting Style For the First Time

The two-hour documentary reflects on the tumultuous week after Diana's Aug. 31, 1997 death, and how the tragedy affected the world. William and Harry, as well as other family members, close friends, political figures and journalists -- including Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, Earl Spencer and Lady Sarah McCorquodale -- also speak on camera about Diana.

“Part of the reason why Harry and I want to do this is because we feel we owe it to her … I think an element of it is feeling like we let her down when we were younger. We couldn’t protect her," William said in a statement. "We feel we at least owe her 20 years...

The Imitation Game star has been nominated for his leading role in BBC drama Sherlock.Scroll down for full list of nominations

Benedict Cumberbatch has been nominated for the third time as leading actor in his BBC role of Sherlock. This marks his sixth nomination for this category in his career.

Cumberbatch received a Best Actor Oscar nomination earlier this year for his role as Alan Turing in Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game.

The nominations, announced on Wednesday by actors Freddie Fox and Amanda Abbington, place Cumberbatch in a category alongside three others.

Toby Jones (Harry Potter, Captain America, The Hunger Games) is recognized for his role in Marvellous. The show received two other nominations including Single Drama and Supporting Actress for Gemma Jones.

James Nesbitt (The Hobbit) also received a leading actor nomination for The Missing, in addition to Jason Watkins (The Golden Compass) for his role in The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries.

For...

Projects range from a film about centenarians to documentaries about renowned hunger striker Bobby Sands, Winnie Mandela, Ratko Mladic and Madonna’s backing dancers.Scroll down for full list of projects

Idfa (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) has unveiled the 50 titles that will be presented at its international co-finance and production market, the Idfa Forum (Nov 24-26).

At the market, filmmakers and producers will present their documentary projects to commissioning editors from international television stations and other financiers with the aim of completing finance for their documentary projects.

A total of 50 projects have been selected for the upcoming Idfa Forum, including new projects by Heddy Honigmann, Janus Metz and Vitaly Mansky.

The Idfa 2014 programme contains 17 documentaries that were presented as projects at previous editions of the Idfa Forum.

Projects selected for this year’s Idfa Forum will be pitched in a variety of settings: the central pitches in the main auditorium of the Compagnietheater, the round table...

"The Flag," which premieres on CNN tonight, September 4th, at 9pm, serves as a softer counterpart to "9/11: The Falling Man," the 2006 documentary Henry Singer made about the search for the identity of the jumper in Richard Drew's iconic image from the World Trade Center. Drew's unforgettable photograph of a man plunging headfirst past rows of windows on a building that would later crumble was initially deemed too troubling when it appeared in news coverage following the attack, and "9/11: The Falling Man," which premiered on UK TV in 2006 before coming to the Us on what's now Investigation Discovery, carried with it that wounded sense of being a quest to seek out the name of someone who died horribly. "The Flag," directed by "Gunner Palace" filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker, is centered around an image that people were actually eager to embrace after the tragedy -- one shot by Thomas Franklin,...

A sterling year has wrapped with a raft of new trophies – the finest of the winners amply demonstrate what documentaries can do better than anything else

This year, Sheffield Doc/Fest beefed up its awards schedule with a raft of well thought out new trophies. The choices made suggest that this decision is definitely paying off.

Perhaps the most useful of the new categories is the Green award. Environmental film-making is a field in which some fine work needs to be separated from a lot of routine special pleading. Thankfully, this year's award went to a far from preachy film. The Blood of the Rose, produced and directed by Henry Singer (who gave us 9/11: The Falling Man), examines the mysterious murder in Kenya of the conservationist Jane Root, herself a one-time film-maker. The jury said the film offered "a well-balanced perspective on a compelling crime story", and no one could argue with that.