GUN No6
BBC 2 Filmed & Directed
Garden productions
Executive Producer Zac Beattie
Editer Rupert Houseman
1 x 72
BAFTA Winner for Factual Single 2019
Nominated The Orwell Prizes Exposing Britain’s Social Evils Prize Short 2019
Nominated series Grierson Awards 2019
Premier at Sheffield Doc Fest 2018
“Film-maker James Newton did a magisterial job of letting the desperate humanity come through without letting the film slide into sentimentality or cloying sympathy. This quietly daring, profound and moving film went further in answering the question of why someone would pick up a gun than any single attempt I have seen.
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“The reconstructions, tightly edited to the same standards as a police drama by director James Newton, undercut by the offenders’ testimony of the reality of such a life – paranoid, fearful
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This investigative documentary tracks the journey of Gun No. 6 Britain’s most wanted firearm. For over a decade during the early-2000s, when shootings in Britain spiked, Gun No. 6 changed hands to be used in 11 cases and 3 murders. The film tracks every shooting made by the gun using police reports, re-enactments and insight from those who witnessed or worked on the crimes.
The families and loved ones of those killed speak with unflinching honesty; the parents, partners and children left behind are trying to make sense of the violence. “Why would anyone pick up a gun and use it”?
With no-one who has fired the gun willing to speak, So bringing together six former-perpetrators of gun crime to offer insight into the driving force behind violence in Britain today. Through the journey of Britain’s most deadly, illegal gun, this documentary begins to understand why violence and lethal weapons exist on the streets.
“There were no excuses; rather, context and explanation, offered with clarity and frankness by men deeply moved by the process. But we were left in no doubt that these men were products of their environments, crippled by absent or dysfunctional parents, a lack of opportunity, a sense of powerlessness and low self-esteem.
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