Sean Langan

Journalist and filmmaker Sean Langan

Born in 1964, Sean Langan started his career as a print journalist before embarking on investigating war-torn and hostile environments armed only with a camera. Sean has been making documentaries in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Zimbabwe and India for over ten years.

Sean’s first film Video Diaries: Nightmare in Paradise saw him investigate the kidnapping of two British tourists in Kashmir. He joined the relatives of these missing men, who didn’t know if their sons were alive or dead, following them as they took to the streets looking for information and recording their every move with his camera. He recorded his own thoughts and investigation into the pair’s disappearance, in a diary format.

Nearly ten years to the day after making this film Sean himself is kidnapped by the Taliban, while making a documentary for Channel 4. The BBC drama The Kidnap Diaries documents this horrific ordeal, which is co-written by Sean.

Sean has carved out a niche for himself reporting from hostile environments other journalists won’t visit as they are deemed too higher risk. His personal style of filmmaking has been hugely successful with series such as Langan Behind the Lines, Fighting the Taleban, Meeting the Taleban and Afghan Ladies’ Driving School among them.

The Channel 4 Dispatches documentary Fighting the Taleban won a Rory Peck Award in 2007. The BBC series Langan Behind the Lines was short-listed for a BAFTA, a Grierson and a One World Media Award. Mission Accomplished was also voted in the top ten documentaries in the world in 2005.

Sean is currently writing a book about his kidnap and hasn’t ruled out the possibility of returning to film in the country and people who held him captive…