Churchill's War Lab
Taylor Downing's new book is out: Churchill's War Lab - Code Breakers, Boffins and Innovators: The Mavericks Churchill Led to Victory published by Little, Brown
Other News:
FLASHBACK has received the Grierson History Today Award for Best Historical Documentary for the film 1983 – THE BRINK OF APOCALYPSE. The judges of this highly prestigious Award named after the founder of the documentary movement said the quality of the short listed films was very high this year.
Producer-director Henry Chancellor, Line Producer Cherry Brewer and Executive Producer Taylor Downing collected the Award at a ceremony in London on 20 November. Taylor said “It is a great honour to be awarded a Grierson which is awarded by one’s peers in the industry. And the ‘History Today Award for Best Historical Documentary’ is a great accolade for Flashback to win.” This is the second major Award won by Flashback in the last three weeks, having won the Japan Prize for TWO SCHOOLS IN NABLUS last month.
Taylor Downing accepting the Grierson Award at the ceremony in London, 20 Nov 2008.
From left to right:
Paul Lay, Editor History Today; Sue Perkins and Giles Coren, hosts of the ceremony; Taylor Downing, Executive Producer; Henry Chancellor, Producer-Director; Cherry Brewer, Line Producer.
1983 – THE BRINK OF APOCALYPSE was transmitted by Channel 4 earlier this year and deals with events running up to the night of 8th November 1983 when leaders of the Soviet Union prepared to launch a full scale nuclear attack upon the West, believing that they were themselves about to come under nuclear attack from NATO. This little known event was probably the second most dangerous moment in the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film explores the lead up to this misunderstanding and the huge failure of intelligence on both sides that nearly led to the Third World War by accident. The film includes interviews with many of the leading figures in the crisis including Robert Gates, then Deputy Director of the CIA, now US Secretary of Defense, and other leading figures from the KGB, the CIA, the US and the Soviet military.
