documentary Filmmaker
erica is an award winning and multi bafta-nominated documentary director. she specialises in sensitive single docs including feature-length titles and series.
her films have HAD masSIVE impact in the media and been shown worldwide including bbc, hbo, channel 4, itv, starz and amazon prime.
Erica appears on panels, industry events and regularly contributes to media coverage of her film and the TV industry.
she is now focussing on directing big singles, series and executive producing.
coming soon- Prisoner 951: the hostages’ story
Erica has directed and filmed a new feature-length documentary coming out on the BBC this winter.
The film explores the extraordinary six-year ordeal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe - a British-Iranian dual national held in Tehran - as well as the tireless campaign by her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, to bring her home.
With exclusive access to Nazanin and Richard, as well as other former hostages - Anoosheh Ashoori, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Jason Rezaian and key political decision-makers - Prisoner 951: The Hostages’ Story offers a rare look at the toll of being used as leverage in political negotiations between states.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-prisoner-951-the-hostages-story
AL FAYED: PREDATOR AT HARRODS (bbc)
Winner RTS Scoop of the Year 2025
Nominated Broadcast Awards 2025
Longlisted Grierson Awards 2025
“The voices of these women finally need to be turned up as we write and re-write the history of our times.”
Emma Barnett
“so many of the women in the BBC documentary …required such sensitivity by the BBC director Erica Gornall and producer Cassie Cornish-Trestrail to draw out their stories. It is impossible to watch the film without seeing the lasting pain of their experiences.”
Henry Porter
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Glitter: the popstar paedophile (ITV)
A feature–length archive and interview driven re-evaluation of one of the UK’s most prolific paedophiles.
“This bruising and important documentary is an indictment of those who let Gary Glitter off the hook for decades”
Ed Power, The i
“The film assembles its evidence meticulously, relentlessly and unsensationally, including not just the facts that would end up in court but moments that tell us almost more than the lawyers can.”
Lucy Mangen, Guardian
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MAd women (C4)
The story of pioneering women making iconic TV ads that changed the world: from Shake n’ Vac and Levi’s, to the Flake girl in the bath and the Lynx effect.
“This programme…is a celebration- and one I don’t think I’ve seen before - of women making inroads into an industry that, despite its vaunted modernity, excluded them from its inception. And those were there have great stories to tell and great memories to evoke.”
The Guardian
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ghislaine maxwell: making of a monster (c4/starz)
Shortlisted: Rose d’Or Awards in Documentary.
Originally on Channel 4 (UK)
Available on Apple TV and Starz
“If there is a wider lesson to be learned, it’s about how the empty, untethered lives of the very rich create a breeding ground for sociopaths, but other anecdotes about Maxwell’s behaviour offer a direct foreshadowing of her future as a handmaiden for extreme misogyny.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian
