The Producers

Ed Perkins - Director

Ed Perkins is an Oscar nominated documentary filmmaker whose films have won numerous international awards. He has worked exclusively at Lightbox for the past five years where he has made many of his films. Ed has directed films for Netflix, the BBC, The Guardian, National Geographic and Channel 4 and was named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit in 2015. After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 2009, Ed directed the behind-the-scenes documentaries for PROJECT NIM, THE EAGLE, the BAFTA winning THE IMPOSTER, and the Academy Award winning SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN. In 2015 Ed made his first feature documentary GARNET’S GOLD, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2014, won a Grierson Award for Best Newcomer, won Best International Documentary awards at Docville and Jozi Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at both Tribeca and the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Ed then went on to make BARE KNUCKLE FIGHT CLUB for Channel 4 and FX Studios, of which The Times said "You will not have seen a better documentary this year”. He has also made a number of short films including IF I DIE ON MARS which won Vimeo "Short of the Week" and "Staff Pick" accolades and has had more than 1,000,000 views over multiple platforms. In 2018 Ed directed BLACK SHEEP, a documentary short for The Guardian, which won 13 international awards and was nominated for BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT at the 91st Academy Awards. Ed has just finished his latest film TELL ME WHO I AM - a feature documentary for Netflix.

Simon Chinn - Producer

Simon Chinn is a double Oscar-winning producer who is responsible for some of the most successful feature documentaries of recent years. In 2005, he conceived and produced his first theatrical feature documentary, Man on Wire. It went on to win over 40 international awards including the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. He followed that up with a string of multi award winning feature documentaries including Project Nim, The Imposter, The Green Prince, Garnet’s Gold, Bolshoi Babylon and Searching for Sugar Man which also won a BAFTA and an Academy Award and made over $20m at the international box office. In 2015 he teamed up with his old school friend Louis Theroux to produce My Scientology Movie, Theroux’s first theatrical doc. It grossed £1.1 million at the UK box office, making it one of the highest grossing feature docs of all time in the UK. Simon launched Lightbox in 2014 with his LA based cousin, Emmy-winning producer Jonathan Chinn. Focused on producing high-end non-fiction - series, feature docs and shorts - for multiple platforms, Lightbox has completed major projects for Xbox Studios, Netflix, Fusion, Esquire Network, Channel 4, BBC2, FX, National Geographic and ESPN. Its feature doc on the 1992 LA riots, LA 92, for National Geographic, won a primetime Emmy and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. Its documentary short, Black Sheep, made with The Guardian, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2019. Lightbox’s latest feature doc, Untouchable, tells the story of Harvey Weinstein’s rise and fall in the context of the new revelations which came to light in November 2017. It premiered at Sundance in January 2019 and will be released around the world in the summer of 2019. Simon is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, sits on the BAFTA Film committee as an elected member and is a trustee of the Grierson Trust.

Making The Film

Director's Statement

GARNET’S GOLD was the first feature documentary I ever made. It was a real labour of love, made over 5 years. Since then, producer Simon Chinn and I have made the Oscar-nominated BLACK SHEEP and most recently the Netflix feature documentary TELL ME WHO I AM. But ever since its initial release in 2015, I have received a steady stream of messages from people all around the world who had watched the film and been deeply moved by Garnet’s tale. Something in his story seemed to really resonate with audiences just as it had with me. He is an extraordinary person who has made an indelible impact on my life - and I’m very excited to now be able to share his story again.

I first met Garnet Frost in 2010. Armed with a bundle of maps, an infectious enthusiasm and a disarming eccentricity, he immediately drew me into his world. Over the course of the next year I spent a lot of time with Garnet, his extraordinary mother, and wonderful friends. I spent countless hours absorbed by his plans to travel up to Scotland in search of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s lost gold, his new theories for where exactly it might be hidden, his elaborate plans to build flying machines.

For much of that time I honestly had no idea what this film was. There was no film crew. No lights. It was really just me, my camera (Canon 5D Mark II), and Garnet. But I always suspected that the adventure into the Scottish wilderness was about something more emotional – more human – than a literal pot of gold.

This is a film about one man heading into the unknown to confront his demons. An archetypal hero’s journey if you will. And it’s a film built upon Garnet’s willingness to admit his most personal desires and shortcomings directly to the camera. We don’t often see ‘real’ people on screen. So many of us are constantly self-censoring, creating illusions of perfect lives that often bear no relation to reality. To have a real human being - nothing more, nothing less - at the centre of this film, who wears his heart on his sleeve and is willing to ask himself the difficult questions about his life that many of us are too scared to ask ourselves, hopefully transforms a fascinating story about a man on a treasure hunt into a bigger film that offers up more universal, human themes. I hope it’s a film that celebrates humanity even as it reveals its flaws - a film that finds extraordinary hope in an ordinary life.