Biography directors of Saving Africa’s Witch Children

RedRebel Films began in late 2007 after Joost van der Valk and Mags Gavan decided to join forces.

Mags has a background in both current affairs and documentary after having worked at the BBC for 13 years. Her credits includes ‘A welcome in the Hillside’, a current affairs film about the Ku Klux Klan actively recruiting in the Welsh valleys which won a Welsh BAFTA Award. She also filmed and directed ‘Diary of a delinquent’, a BBC1 documentary filmed over ten years. This went out in BBC’s first flagship documentary series ‘One Life’, and was also nominated for a BAFTA award. Mags -who became known as ‘Barbie with balls’ for her reputation of fearlessly going undercover – made over thirty films in her BBC career. One investigation she worked on about the ‘Cardiff Three’ led to three wrongly convicted young men being released from prison (BBC1 Special). Before leaving the BBC Mags created the successful series Paparazzi for BBC 1 and BBC 3 where she came to work with Director Joost van der Valk.

Joost van der Valk with a background in Anthropology, Spanish and Philosophy, had just finished his fourth Masters degree at the National Film and Televison School. He had his graduation film Hacer la Luna taken by Channel 4’s Series The Zone and was nominated for best newcomer at the Royal Television Society Awards in 2004. In his native Holland Joost set up his company SoulRebel Productions and made what was to become a cult film across the Netherlands about a football hooligan called ‘Haagse Sjonnie’. Joost then joined Mags as a Director on the Paparazzi series for BBC1 and BBC3 as it was recommissioned for a second series. Joost went on to gain access to one of the most feared criminal gangs in Europe who were affiliated with the notorious Crips gangs in LA. Whilst he spent months gaining access and filming he continued making films with Mags in the UK.

When Mags eventually left BBC and joined forces with Joost, they dedicated their careers to making hard hitting films that provoke change or engage discussion. Producing their own films under RedRebel Films they began making cutting edge current affairs documentaries such as Kashmir (about the independence struggle in Indian Kashmir) and Piracy ( about Pirates in the Malacca Straits). In 2007 they spent four months uncovering evidence that led to a film that exposed doctors in the early 80’s as using patients in Aids trials. The film Bad Blood was a BBC Newsnight special, voted best of 2007.

In late 2007 they discovered children were being murdered and tortured in the Niger Delta because of witchcraft accusations. They sent the idea to Channel 4 but realising the importance and urgency of the film, took off without a commission and filmed more than half of what was to become Saving Africa’s Witch Children ( A Dispatches Special for Channel 4, 2008). The film exposed the horrors of an on-going witch hunt against children in The Niger Delta. This film won many awards such as the British Academy Award (BAFTA) for Best Current Affairs Programme 2009, the Amnesty Media Award for Best Documentary 2009, the Sandford St Martin Trust Religious Award, and the One World Children’s Rights Award 2009. It has now also been nominated for an international Emmy Award.

Their most recent film, Crips: Strapped ‘n Strong (2009) is a feature-length cinema documentary about a Dutch gang of Crips in the Netherlands. The film was shown in cinemas around Europe and was the official selection at numerous festivals, such as the Locarno Film Festival and the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA). It continues its success on the festival circuit.