Executives

Cassian Harrison Exective Producer

Cassian Harrison is a multi-award winning documentary producer and director. His CV covers an extremely diverse range of programming, ranging from blue-chip international historical series to hard-hitting current affairs programmes filmed in some of the world’s most dangerous locations, to cutting-edge factual entertainment formats for the domestic audience.

Cassian’s credits with Lion include Guns, Germs & Steel – a major adaptation of the Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer-winning book of the same name,  Martin Luther – an acclaimed biopic of the Protestant Revolutionary, The True Face of War – a gritty and award-winning exposé of the invasion of Iraq, Time Commanders – a ground-breaking series using video gaming technology to bring alive ancient battlefields, and, most recently ‘Atlas: China Revealed’, a stunning feature-length documentary portrait of modern China shot in HD.

Cassian’s projects have won major awards worldwide: His first documentary, ‘Jerusalem, City of Heaven’ won an Emmy for writing. He was producer and director of the Internationally acclaimed exposé of Taliban Afghanistan ‘Beneath the Veil’, which won two RTS awards including Programme of the Year, a Bafta, an Emmy and a Peabody. His programmes have also won numerous awards from the New York Film and Television festival and other documentary festivals worldwide.

Cassian is also a highly regarded New Media producer and executive. He set up Lion’s interactive department some seven years ago, and since then the department has gone on to produce a series of acclaimed and award-winning multi-media resources for broadcasters worldwide. This includes; History Detectives (PBS), The Hajj (C4), Kumbh Mela (C4), Couch Commanders (BBCi) and Karbala (C4). Between them they won an RTS award, two IVCA awards, Learning on Screen award and were nominated for two interactive BAFTAs.

Cassian is currently executive producing two further ‘Atlas’ films on India and South Africa for the Discovery Channel, and a major four-part science series for Channel 4. Through his own company Smokefall, Cassian continues to develop new programming in partnership with Lion, and he also regularly consults directly for Channel 4, where he is currently developing a major revision of the Channel’s News and Current Affairs output to meet the demands of new delivery and ditribution platforms.