Hot Shots 2026: Nicholas de Taranto

As an assistant producer for Norma Percy, Nicholas de Taranto secured access to Turkey’s prime minister and Germany’s vice chancellor for the veteran producer’s BBC series Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil.

From there, he found himself scouring the US, Mexico and parts of Latin America for three series of Wall to Wall’s Narco Wars, persuading mob wives, sicarios, drug enforcement agents and ex-presidents to speak on camera. As director and edit producer on several episodes, embedded with law enforcement agencies and drug recovery centres, Nicholas recalls a “thrilling, and sometimes a bit hair-raising” experience.

Describing himself as “a guy who loves finding the stories that haven’t been told, currying enthusiasm for them and then relentlessly pursuing them,” Nicholas made his feature debut as producer/director on Pitch Productions’ Broadcast Sport Award-nominated mountaineering doc Race to the Summit.

Nicholas has since worked on a string of films for Passion Pictures, including skydiving doc Freefall and Crufts documentary Top Dogs, which deployed his world-first concept of a fully immersive story told using Apple Vision Pro headsets.

Nicholas has also taken a deep dive into a pair of rock legends: after helping develop BBC2 doc McCartney: the Hunt for the Lost Bass, the Düsseldorf -born filmmaker is now building on his roots with a feature doc about a similar figure, which he is producing and directing for Passion Pictures, independently financed by Legendary Entertainment.

This passion project, which Nicholas has been trying to make for seven years, marks a major step forward in his directorial ambitions – and also tips a hat to his days working on Wall to Wall’s Who Do You Think You Are.

Passion Pictures creative director Hamish Fergusson has admired Nicholas’ “rigour, creative spirit and energy” over the years and is excited by his latest projects.

“From access to writing to scripting to visual ambition, Nicholas brings it all, but it’s his confidence and clarity of vision that has increasingly stood out,” Fergusson says.

“I’ve recently watched him conceive and deliver a major independent feature film from scratch - driven by an extraordinary level of commitment and boundless positivity. A huge career achievement that he has built himself, brick by brick.”