Matt Shea | |
---|---|
Born | 16 December 1991 |
Occupation(s) | Producer, film creator and editor |
Matt Shea is a British documentary filmmaker, journalist and presenter.
He is known for the VICE documentaries Iceman, Targeted Individuals, The Pink Cocaine Wave, Ravers Vs. Putin, and The Last Festival on Earth. [1] He produces and presents High Society, a documentary series that explores drug culture in the UK and features access to real criminals. [2] [3] Shea's documentaries often feature "crime and fringe stories". [4]
Shea started his career writing for VICE Magazine. [5]
As VICE moved into digital, broadcast and feature documentaries, Shea produced a number of films and series including Gaycation, which featured the actor Elliot Page, and Chemsex. [6]
He also directed the feature-length documentary Time To Die, which was filmed over four years and covers the illegal underground global network that illegally sources, buys, and sells assisted-dying methods. [7]
Shea was the first journalist to gain access to the Albanian Mafia and Colombian Clan Del Golfo Cartel for the Channel 4 documentary A New Cocaine Mafia. [8]
His documentary about Wim Hof led to a global surge of interest in the Wim Hof Method. [9]
Shea has also produced drug programming for Netflix and Channel 5, producing Channel 5's Britain's Cocaine Epidemic [10] and Netflix's Dope. [11]
He produced a documentary about the famous fraudster and sex party organiser Lord Edward Davenport. [12]
Shea's special report for VICE about Andrew Tate, called The Dangerous Rise of Andrew Tate, was released on VICE and other platforms across the world in January 2023 and BBC iPlayer in the UK on 11 February. [13] [14] [15]
As a presenter, Shea is best known for his films about crime and drugs, such as the High Society series. In Inside the Laughing Gas Black Market, Shea met criminals who broke into hospitals in order to steal canisters of the recreational drug nitrous oxide. [16] How Weed Laws Are Failing the UK portrayed new trends in the cannabis black market including groppers (grandmothers who grow cannabis because they are seen as less suspicious) and gangs using heat-seeking drones to find and rob rival cannabis grow operations.
In The Truth About Ecstasy Shea witnesses students manufacturing ecstasy tablets in Brighton, and visits the first ever on-site drug-testing at a UK music festival.
Shea has also met Wim Hof, embedded with targeted individuals, and covered competitive gaming in South Korea. [17] [18] [19]
Recreational drug use is the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness, either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime. When a psychoactive drug enters the user's body, it induces an intoxicating effect. Recreational drugs are commonly divided into three categories: depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens.
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and politician, who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed "the king of cocaine", Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history, having amassed an estimated net worth of US$30 billion by the time of his death—equivalent to $70 billion as of 2022—while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Club drugs, also called rave drugs or party drugs, are a loosely defined category of recreational drugs which are associated with discothèques in the 1970s and nightclubs, dance clubs, electronic dance music (EDM) parties, and raves in the 1980s to today. Unlike many other categories, such as opiates and benzodiazepines, which are established according to pharmaceutical or chemical properties, club drugs are a "category of convenience", in which drugs are included due to the locations they are consumed and/or where the user goes while under the influence of the drugs. Club drugs are generally used by adolescents and young adults.
The war on drugs is the policy of a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States. The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments, through United Nations treaties, have made illegal.
Lacing or cutting, in drug culture, refer to the act of using a substance to adulterate substances independent of the reason. The resulting substance is laced or cut.
Sex and drugs date back to ancient humans and have been interlocked throughout human history. Both legal and illegal, the consumption of drugs and their effects on the human body encompasses all aspects of sex, including desire, performance, pleasure, conception, gestation, and disease.
Lisa Palfrey is a Welsh actress. She is known for playing the roles of Gwenny in House of America (1997), Mrs Nice in Guest House Paradiso (1999), Maureen in Pride (2014), Mrs Dai Bread 1 in Under Milk Wood (2015), Cynthia in the Netflix original television series Sex Education and Eleanor James in the Sky One original television series COBRA.
Griselda Blanco Restrepo was a Colombian drug lord who was prominent in the cocaine-based drug trade and underworld of Miami, during the 1970s through the early 2000s, and who has also been claimed by some to have been part of the Medellín Cartel. She was shot dead in Medellín on September 3, 2012 at age of 69.
Wim Hof, also known as The Iceman, is a Dutch motivational speaker and extreme athlete noted for his ability to withstand low temperatures. He previously held a Guinness World Record for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice, and he holds a record for a barefoot half marathon on ice and snow. He attributes these feats to his Wim Hof Method (WHM), a combination of frequent cold exposure, breathing techniques and meditation. Hof's method has been the subject of several scientific studies, with mixed results.
David John Nutt is an English neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in the research of drugs that affect the brain and conditions such as addiction, anxiety, and sleep. He is the chairman of Drug Science, a non-profit which he founded in 2010 to provide independent, evidence-based information on drugs. Until 2009, he was a professor at the University of Bristol heading their Psychopharmacology Unit. Since then he has been the Edmond J Safra chair in Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences there. Nutt was a member of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, and was President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
DrugScience or Drug Science (originally called the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD)) is a UK-based drugs advisory committee proposed and initially funded by hedge fund manager Toby Jackson. It is chaired by Professor David Nutt and was officially launched on 15 January 2010 with the help of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. The primary aim of the committee is to review and investigate the scientific evidence of drug harms without the political interference that could result from government affiliation.
William Cohen, better known by the stage name Billy Corben, is an American documentary film director. Along with producing partner Alfred Spellman, he is co-founder of the Miami-based studio Rakontur, which has created films such as Cocaine Cowboys, Dawg Fight, The U, and The U Part 2.
Peter Spirer, founder of Rugged Entertainment, is an Academy and Emmy Award-Nominated director and producer whose films have been official selections at Sundance Film Festival.
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Emory Andrew Tate III is an American-British social media personality, businessman, and former professional kickboxer. His controversial commentary has resulted in his expulsions from various social media platforms and concern that he is encouraging misogynistic views amongst young males. As of December 2023, he had over 8.5 million followers on X and was the third-most "googled" person in 2023, with most young British adults aware of who he is. As of March 2024, Tate is facing criminal charges in Romania and the United Kingdom. He has also been dubbed the "king of toxic masculinity", and identified as part of the manosphere.
Erin Lee Carr is an American documentary filmmaker. She is also an author for publications including VICE and her memoir called All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir, a story about love, addiction, and the relationship between father and daughter. In 2015, Variety included Carr as one of its "10 Documakers To Watch". Carr made the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list.
A Futile and Stupid Gesture is a 2018 American biographical comedy-drama film based on Josh Karp's book of the same title, directed by David Wain, and written by Michael Colton and John Aboud. The film stars Will Forte as comedy writer Douglas Kenney, during the rise and fall of National Lampoon.
Yes Theory is a Canadian digital media brand built around a YouTube channel founded by Thomas Brag, Ammar Kandil, Matt Dahlia, and Derin Emre. Originally founded as Generation Y Not, Yes Theory first gained national media attention in November 2015 with their message of inclusivity in the wake of terror attacks in Beirut and Paris. They have been featured in a range of national and international media.