Award-winning current affairs filmmakers Gesbeen Mohammad and Robin Barnwell have launched Sisu Pictures, an independent production company built to tackle major international stories through rigorously verified, human-focused documentaries.
The company is making its entrance 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 examine life under authoritarian rule and were produced under conditions that required much of the filming to be conducted in secret.
Mohammad, Sisu’s co-founder, and Barnwell, its creative director, have collectively won Emmys, Peabodys and BAFTAs. Their previous work includes Mariupol: The People’s Story and Inside Russia: Putin’s War at Home.
Two Investigations Launch the Company
Iran: The People’s Story investigates the crackdown on dissent following the January massacre. The documentary examines how the regime has used war as cover to strengthen its control and intensify authoritarianism.
The Taliban’s War on Women, meanwhile, documents the realities of increasingly repressive Taliban rule. It follows Afghans living in exile as they work to rescue victims seeking to escape.
Those films reflect Sisu’s plan to pursue stories from countries and regimes that journalists can struggle to access. Mohammad and Barnwell said facts and verification will remain central to the company’s work, while its projects will frequently revisit defining events after time has passed.
“Five years after the Taliban took over, or 25 years after 9/11, for example, we look at the big stories and find a way to tell them through a human, powerful lens,” Barnwell said. Those examples illustrate the company’s retrospective approach rather than confirm specific future films.
Barnwell framed Sisu’s mission around a wider struggle over reliable information. “We’re losing sight of the truth in many places,” he said. “People say the future will be defined by the battle between lies and truth, rather than simply by competing ideologies or liberal democracy.”
He added that both launch documentaries confront falsehoods by giving people an opportunity to speak and bringing their accounts to a broad audience.
Building a New Model in a Difficult Market
Sisu is entering a current affairs sector in which funding has become increasingly difficult to secure. Rather than step back from filmmaking, Mohammad and Barnwell saw the market contraction as a reason to establish their own production vehicle.
“The market is shrinking so the question was, ‘How do we keep telling important stories about the world when budgets are stagnating?’” Mohammad said. She explained that creating Sisu gives the filmmakers greater control over budgets while allowing them to preserve their creative vision and raise capital for serious, boutique productions.
The company is working with co-producers including French-German broadcaster Arte on the Iran and Afghanistan documentaries. A currently undisclosed American partner is also involved. According to the filmmakers, it has become rare for one public service broadcaster to provide all the financing for a complex current affairs film about a distant regime, particularly when production takes years.
Access is another mounting concern. Mohammad said the number of places where journalists are permitted to report has decreased. Sisu’s approach, she said, is to bear witness to people’s experiences rather than issue declarations, a method she believes helps protect the journalism.
Barnwell nevertheless sees evidence of an audience for substantial investigative work. He pointed to recent Oscar-winning documentaries including Navalny and Mr. Nobody vs Putin, as well as the global acclaim attracted by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s NAZA. A24’s You Can See Everything has also been tipped as a possible Best Picture Oscar winner and has made millions at the box office.
Impartiality and Verification
Mohammad and Barnwell emphasized compliance and impartiality as core parts of Sisu’s identity. Barnwell said the time required to verify facts has increased enormously.
Their comments come as the BBC has faced impartiality controversies, including a botched Donald Trump edit followed by the resignations of its Director General and news chief. A separate Gaza documentary was later found to have been partly narrated by the son of a Hamas minister. Both productions involved outside production companies.
Mohammad and Barnwell declined to address those cases directly, but said social media has made impartial reporting more challenging. Mohammad argued that journalists face continual pressure to comment online as they compete for attention, while younger generations can sometimes have difficulty separating activism and advocacy from impartiality.
She acknowledged that activist filmmaking has a place, but said filmmakers should be open with audiences about their viewpoint, contributors and chosen characters. “For us, the line is clear: report the facts fairly and complete the work,” Mohammad said.
ShowBiz Take
Sisu’s launch matters because it pairs an ambitious editorial mandate with a practical response to the funding and access problems facing current affairs filmmaking. Debuting with separate BBC and Channel 4 investigations on the same night immediately demonstrates the company’s focus: difficult international subjects, testimony from people directly affected and productions requiring discretion on the ground.
The use of multiple co-production partners also shows how Mohammad and Barnwell intend to keep such projects viable when a single broadcaster may no longer cover the full cost. Their repeated emphasis on verification and transparency is equally central to Sisu’s pitch at a time when the filmmakers believe the divide between truth and falsehood is becoming more consequential.
What Happens Next?
Mohammad and Barnwell are already developing two additional projects, although they are keeping details confidential to protect people involved on the ground. They are also exploring more retrospective documentaries that could be pitched to platforms and networks including Netflix and HBO.