for kosminsky it was his first experience of directing a television drama, an undertaking that, with a budget of £1.5 million, a cast of 125, a crew of 80, and 500 extras, was on an altogether bigger scale than the investigative documentaries he had previously made. having never shot a frame of drama before, he described the first day as one of the scariest challenges of his life. "i just literally did not know whether i could do it." he was later to call it his "big break", and it became the first of many hard-hitting research-led dramas, including "no child of mine" (1997), "warriors" (1999), "the government inspector" (2005) and "the promise" (2011).