Chris Atkins (filmmaker)

In 2007, Atkins directed his first feature documentary Taking Liberties,[9] which criticised the Blair government for undermining civil liberties since the war on terror. While making Taking Liberties, Atkins was held under anti-terror laws when he tried to speak with the Home Secretary John Reid at the 2006 Labour Party conference.[8] The film was released in over 50 British cinemas shortly before Blair stepped down in 2007. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gave the film 4 stars, saying "there's something exhilarating about this thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile docu-blast against Tony Blair's insidious diminution of native British liberties."[10] The film was BAFTA nominated for the "Carl Foreman award for special achievement by a British director, writer or producer in their first feature film" in the 2008 British Academy Film Awards.[11]

In 2009, Atkins directed his second feature documentary, Starsuckers,[12] which heavily criticised the media for the negative effects of celebrity culture. The film gained wide notoriety for selling fake celebrity stories to several British tabloid newspapers, and for secretly filming journalists from Sunday tabloids, who were attempting to buy celebrity medical records. The Guardian newspaper published two front page stories about Starsuckers in October 2009, and the News Of The World quickly contacted the filmmakers to assert that they had never threatened libel actions against another publication.[13] Atkins also secretly filmed the celebrity publicist Max Clifford boasting about how he kept embarrassing stories about his clients out of the media. Clifford also tried to legally block the film's release. The film also criticised Bob Geldof over the negative consequences of both Live Aid and Live 8 charity concerts, leading Geldof to write Atkins a 6,000 word letter, attacking the film days before it was screened on Channel 4 in 2010. Thirty minutes of footage from Starsuckers were shown as part of Atkins' evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.[3] His evidence was quoted extensively in Leveson's final report.

In 2015, Atkins wrote and directed "UKIP: The First 100 Days", a one-hour mockumentary drama for Channel 4.[14] The film was set in an imagined future where UKIP had won the 2015 general election, and mixed real news archive with fly on the wall style footage of a fictional UKIP MP, Deepa Kaur. The film was broadcast on 16 February 2015 and caused considerable controversy, leading to over 6000 complaints to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom.[15] UKIP supporters were upset that the film portrayed UKIP policies in a negative light so close to the general election. However the Ofcom rejected all of the complaints and ruled that the film had not breached the Ofcom code.

Atkins went on to make TV documentaries for the Channel 4 television series Dispatches.[16] In 2012 he spent a year undercover investigating the illegal trade in confidential data,[17] in which Atkins bought private information on volunteers from unwitting private detectives to illustrate the ease with which data is bought and sold on the black market. The film culminated in Atkins being unmasked by two private detectives who chased him down a street. He also produced and directed the Dispatches special, Celebs, Brands and Fake Fans, which attempted to show how social media popularity can be bought and sold. The film generated considerable controversy when it was revealed that Atkins had secretly filmed several members of the ITV soap Coronation Street at a gifting suite, where Atkins had handed out fake products in return for glowing endorsement tweets from several Coronation Street stars, including Brooke Vincent. The investigation was run on the front of The Sun and The Mirror newspaper, and ITV threatened to sue Channel 4 if the film was broadcast, but the film was screened in August 2013 without any legal action.

Atkins kept a diary recording his experiences in HM Prison Wandsworth, between July 2016, when he was sentenced, and March 2017, when he was transferred to an open prison. After his release in December 2018 the diary was the subject of a publishers bidding war.[23] It was published in February 2020 as A Bit of a Stretch, and received highly positive reviews in several newspapers.[24][25] The book appeared in The Sunday Times Bestseller list for two weeks in October 2020. The screen rights to the book were bought by 11th Hour Films, which Atkins is developing into a TV series.[26]

Atkins released a podcast series on prison life, also called A Bit of a Stretch, in October 2020. It was based on over twenty interviews Atkins conducted with former prisoners about their time behind bars. The podcast was given 4 stars by The Times and achieved over 100,000 downloads. [27]