# DocArena: BAFTA-Winning Director John Dower (The Balloonists, Thriller in Manila, My Scientology Movie) Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/film-ireland-podcast-896003/docarena-bafta-winning-director-john-dower-the-balloonists-thriller-in-manila-my-scientology-movie Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/film-ireland-podcast-896003/docarena-bafta-winning-director-john-dower-the-balloonists-thriller-in-manila-my-scientology-movie.md Podcast: [Film Ireland Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/film-ireland-podcast-896003) Published: 2026-05-26T08:58:36+00:00 Episode link: https://www.filmireland.netd/docarena-podcast-bafta-winning-director-john-dower-the-balloonists-thriller-in-manila-my-scientology-movie Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6955465577f9435bdcc8cb82/e/6a1560bccb11d38a8bac2f94/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/film-ireland-podcast-896003/episodes/docarena-bafta-winning-director-john-dower-the-balloonists-thriller-in-manila-my-scientology-movie Duration seconds: 2092 ## Resource In episode 26 of the DocArena Podcast , Ross Whitaker catches up once again with BAFTA Award-winning director John Dower ( Lockerbie ,  Thriller in Manila ,  My Scientology Movie ) to discuss his latest film, The Balloonists . In cinemas on 22nd May, this gripping documentary follows explorer Bertrand Piccard and British flying instructor Brian Jones as they take on the world’s top aeronauts and billionaires in a high-stakes race to become the first to fly nonstop around the globe in a balloon. This podcast has been made possible with the support of the Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland Stakeholders Fund. Listen now on SoundCloud, Apple, Spotify, Acast and Amazon, or subscribe to Film Ireland wherever you get your podcasts . Welcome to The DocArena Podcast in association with Film Ireland. My name is Ross Whitaker and every fortnight, I want to dig deeply into the motivations of documentary filmmakers – how do they choose their subject material and what approaches and strategies do they employ to fund, craft and distribute their work… John Dower John Dower is a British director who recently won a BAFTA for his series Lockerbie . His feature  Thriller in Manila played at Sundance in 2009, went on to be BAFTA and Emmy-nominated, and won a Grierson and a Peabody. His film Bradley Wiggins: A Year In Yellow was BAFTA nominated in the Best Director category. John's other films include the music documentary Live Forever , My Scientology Movie , the Netflix series Sophie – A Murder in West Cork , and The Mystery of DB Cooper , described by The Guardian as, “a real-life Twin Peaks … highly entertaining” and the Times calling it “all but flawless.” The Balloonists The Balloonists , a thrilling new documentary opens in the winter of 1999, when Pic… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/film-ireland-podcast-896003/episodes/docarena-bafta-winning-director-john-dower-the-balloonists-thriller-in-manila-my-scientology-movie/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/film-ireland-podcast-896003/docarena-bafta-winning-director-john-dower-the-balloonists-thriller-in-manila-my-scientology-movie.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.