‘I’ve kept company with very violent people for a very long time,” says documentary-maker Dan Reed, in his office whose location has to be kept secret – I was led here, from a decoy address, by the Channel 4 publicist. “I’ve had murderers try to find me. I’ve had people threaten to shoot me who are armed. I’ve been threatened many, many times. I don’t want to say I’m a tough guy, but the needle doesn’t go into the red until I’ve got something quite specific. The threats delivered face to face I took seriously. People trying to find my home address to post me a parcel I took seriously. People in China sending me emails? I don’t take so seriously. They’re going to have to get on a plane.”
OK, well he does sound like a tough guy, or at least a foreign correspondent of the old school, and that’s fair enough. From the Kosovan war (The Valley, 1999) to the Russian mafia (From Russia With Cash, 2015), Reed’s films have long been threaded together by the reasonable fascinations of the hard-hitting documentary-maker – corruption, crime, natural disaster, war.
