Mags Gavan - Managing Director/PD

Mags has a strong and distinguished background in both current affairs and factual documentary making after having worked at the BBC for 13 years. Known as ‘Barbie with Balls’ for her reputation of fearlessly going undercover, she has made over thirty films in her BBC career.

Credits include 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, and The Cardiff Three which led to three wrongly convicted young men being released from prison. 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 BAFTA nominated.

Before leaving the BBC Mags created the successful series Paparazzi following the work of London’s biggest celebrity picture agency ‘Big Pictures’. This is where she started her PD partnership with Director Joost van der Valk.

Joost van der Valk – Managing Director/PD

With a background in Anthropology, Spanish and Philosophy, Joost had just finished his fourth Masters degree at the National Film and Television School when he met Mags. 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.

He then went on to gain access to one of the most feared criminal gangs in Europe who were affiliated with the notorious Crips gang in LA. This went on to become the RedRebel documentary Crips: Strapped n Strong.

RedRebel Films

When Mags eventually left BBC and joined forces with Joost, they dedicated their careers to making hard hitting films with a purpose, and set up RedRebel.

Immediately they began making cutting edge current affairs documentaries such as Kashmir’s Missing Men (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 using patients as guinea pigs in Aids trials. The resulting film Bad Blood was named BBC Newsnight special of the year 2007.

But their biggest investigation was yet to come. In late 2007 they discovered children were being murdered and tortured in the Niger Delta because of witchcraft accusations.

Realising the importance and urgency of the film, Mags and Joost travelled to Nigeria 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 BAFTA for Best Current Affairs Programme 2009, the Amnesty Media Award for Best Documentary 2009, the International Emmy for Best Current Affairs Programme 2009, the Sandford St Martin Trust Religious Award, and the One World Children’s Rights Award 2009.

Their most recent film, Crips: Strapped ‘n Strong (2009) is a feature-length cinema documentary about the Dutch ‘Crips’ gang (who are affiliated to the world renowned gang of the same name in LA). 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.

Jo Grace – Head of Development/Producer

Jo first met Mags when she worked for her on the BAFTA nominated Diary of a Delinquent for the BBC. A Producer with a great track record in factual and current affairs production, she has worked both in house at BBC Current Affairs as well as for many well respected independent companies such as Mosaic Films, Blast! Films, Oxford Film & Television and True Vision Productions.

She has had great success tackling sensitive and difficult subjects that have led to direct change. Britain’s Challenging Children for Channel 4’s Dispatches uncovered the true scale of child social and emotional issues behind the growth in bad behaviour in Britain’s primary schools. For the BBC she produced the Comic Relief special Dangerous Love on the subject of teen domestic violence that contributed to over £1 million being raised, as well Brought up By Booze on the subject of parental alcohol addiction for the BBC and Children in Need. This was the charity’s first documentary special and a centerpiece of the charity’s output in 2009.

With experience developing, winning and producing commissions across the major network channels, Jo has joined RedRebel to continue building on their success.