Celebrating Outstanding Storytelling

Congratulations to alumna Katya Ochagavia (Tyson’s 2004) who’s documentary, The Black Panther Cubs: when the revolution doesn’t come, has been awarded the Best Documentary Short Film Award at the 2026 Best of Photojournalism Awards! 

Katya, who is Executive Producer - Documentaries at The Guardian, produced the powerful film which tells the story of the children of the Black Panther party and their lives in a moving exploration of legacy, activism and identity. The award, presented by the National Press Photographers Association, honours excellence in visual journalism with a rigorous judging process by over 170 visual journalists and is a wonderful recognition of Katya’s success as a storyteller. 

Alleyn’s Year 10 and 12 students were incredibly fortunate to see the film and hear from Katya when she returned to Alleyn’s during Black History Month in October. Katya explored themes of activism and family with the students as well as giving them valuable insights into the creative process behind documentary making. 

Katya has a history of storytelling successes. This most recent recognition comes hot on the heels of winning the prestigious film award: the Science & Nature Short Form award at the Jackson Wild Media Awards in 2025 for Life Invisible: the fight against superbugs starts in the driest place on Earth. This documentary, which Katya worked as an Executive Producer on in a collaboration between Nobel Prize Outreach, The Guardian and Grain Media (fellow alumnus, Orlando Von Eisendel's (Dutton’s 1998) production company and who incidentally is also an Executive Producer on the film), explores one scientist’s mission to uncover new, life-saving antibiotics in the salt flats of the Atacama desert. 

And in 2022, Katya was Executive Producer of The Black Cop, which was awarded the BAFTA for Best British Short (a category of both fiction and factual combined). 

Many congratulations Katya on this recent success and thank you again for inspiring our students! We look forward to Katya’s next release about an undocumented American leaving Trump's America for Mexico, despite not having been back since he was three months old and not being able to speak Spanish.