Tanya Stephan is a BAFTA and multi-award winning documentary director and series director.
Her films address major current affairs stories and challenging social issues though compelling human stories. Cinematic and intimate, her films have been described as beautifully crafted, sensitively handled and bold.
In 2022 she won the BAFTA Specialist Factual Award, and the Royal Television Society TV Journalism Award for Best International Current Affairs Documentary for her feature-length documentary The Missing Children. She was also long listed for a BAFTA Craft award for Best Director and The Missing Children is currently nominated for a Grierson Award for Best History Documentary and nominated for the Prix Italia for Best Documentary.
Stephan developed, directed and filmed The Missing Children both as a 90-minute documentary, and as a series for SVOD. It is the definitive film and series about the scandal of the Tuam mother and baby institution run by Catholic nuns where 796 children are believed to have died. The film was commissioned by ITV current affairs and co-produced with RTE in Ireland and Topic in the USA where it streamed as a 3-part series on Amazon and Apple TV.
In 2021 Stephan directed and filmed a high profile single for ITV about the actress and celebrity Sheridan Smith exploring mental health and pregnancy - Sheridan Smith: Becoming Mum, shortlisted for a Grierson Award 2021 and nominated for the National Television Awards.
Stephan has directed and shot seven singles and four series for the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV and SVOD. She trained in Documentary Directing at the National Film and Television school with an award from the British Federation of Women Graduates. Her first film for Channel 4 was made for a ground-breaking series about teenagers and mental health called Inside My Head. Her film for the series about Michael, a young teenager living with schizophrenia, was nominated for an RTS award for best single documentary and shortlisted for a Grierson Award for Best Newcomer.