WFTV Q&A: In Conversation with Jenny Popplewell, Director, An American Murder: The Family Next Door

Join us online via Zoom.us | Viewing details will be sent with your Eventbrite confirmation

In this event hosted by 2020 WFTV Mentee, Ruth Mayer, we will be hearing from director Jenny Popplewell about the making of her film Netflix’s An American Murder: The Family Next Door.

Pulling together raw amateur footage from a variety of sources, An American Murder: The Family Next Door uncovers the mystery behind the tragic disappearance of Shanann Watts and her children. The documentary begins by telling the story of Shanann’s apparently happy family life, but then takes a much darker turn when she and two daughters go missing.

The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and for those who are unable to access Netflix to watch the documentary, a viewing link can be booked alongside your ticket. To be able to receive a viewing link, you must have booked a ticket by 17:00 on Monday 7 December.

Watch the trailer for An American Murder: The Family Next Door here.

Jenny Popplewell, Executive Producer

Jenny Popplewell, is the Head of Popular Factual at Knickerbockerglory and specialises in access documentaries and loves to tell peoples stories. She is the creator of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and produced the original Cutting Edge. She brought BBC 3’s Jamie Drag Queen at 16 to the screens which inspired the West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Recently, Jenny has executive produced two series of Gypsy Kids; Our Secret World on Channel 5 and got access to and directed the feature documentary An American Murder: The Family Next Door which has had over 52 million views on Netflix.

Ruth Mayer, Host, TV Documentary PD

Ruth is a documentary director who has made films all over the world for the BBC, Channel Four, Nat Geo, Al Jazeera and The Guardian. She has directed prime-time hours for BBC2’s international Current Affairs strand This World and produced films for C4’s prestigious series Unreported World. Her latest project was a one-off archive-based doc for BBC2 on the collapse of Venezuela. She’s passionate about uniting strong journalism with the best elements of documentary storytelling.

Event Schedule:

18:55: Please join webinar

19:00-19:45: Discussion led by Ruth

19:45-20:00: Audience Q&A

How will the online event work?

This event will be live streamed via Zoom.us. Viewing details will be sent via your Eventbrite confirmation.

Participants accessing the live stream will have their camera and audio muted on arrival, you will not be visible to the other participants.

After the talk, there will be an opportunity for a Q&A with the speakers.

This event is open to WFTV members only.

WFTV members, please log-in to your WFTV account and sign up via the Eventbrite link below this listing.

If you are not a member and would like to join, membership costs just £100 + VAT/yr for those living within the M25, and £50+ VAT/yr for those living outside of this area, please click here or email admin@wftv.org.uk

At WFTV we’re really keen to ensure that all our events are accessible for everyone. So if you have any particular access needs, please can you let us know before an event and we will do our best to accommodate you. We would be grateful if you can give us as much notice as possible – please contact admin@wftv.org.uk