I worked with Alexi on the most editorially and logistically challenging series of my career, Ross Kemp: Lost Boys. Five episodes, extremely limited time and budget and in the main, it was just the two of us co-directing, securing access, shooting and editing. Quite simply, there would be no programme without him.

Access:

Incels are notoriously harder to secure interviews with that drug lords. Directors of other programmes about the subculture I spoke to took seven months to persuade one to talk. Alexi had five to choose from within a month. He secured interviews with looksmaxxers, frontbench politicians, schools, sensitive victim contributors and many others in ridiculously short periods of time. His access abilities are second to none.

Shooting:

There is no question about his very high-level of filming ability. With his own kit, Alexi can shoot beautifully and is very creative with his choice of shots: actuality and lit sit-down interviews.

Editorial:

It’s rare to have a packed and refined shooting script ready to go and then to change a lot of it on the basis of someone’s fresh ideas. Every new idea Alexi suggested replaced a pre-existing scene and the films were superior for them. He got his head around a deeply complex subject fast, researched intensively and found fascinating new angles not covered anywhere else, giving us the opportunity to say new things about a subject, rather than recycling stories already out there. His interview questions are so well thought out: he knows exactly how to get the best out of contributors and always strives for nuance.

As passionate film makers tend to be, his work ethic is unquestionable: he did whatever was necessary to get the job done: the odd 19-hour day, long driving stints all around the country, etc.

In short, there’s genuinely no-one I would recommend with greater enthusiasm. There aren't many out there with the range of skills he has.

Johnny McDevitt