Our Founders
Fifth Taste Films unites the worlds of food and filmmaking to create cinematic stories that resonate, uniting premium filmmaking and brand strategy.
We dive into the origins of flavour, capturing adventure, culture, and people through every bite. Our films blend buddy-road-trip energy with the gastronomic insight of Bourdain at his best, delivering premium content that entertains, surprises, and expands the palate.
Founded by award-winning filmmakers Alex Emanuel and Donna Blackburn, our vision creates a world of character-led IP based on our original BITE INTO and future formats.
We work with brands from established stars and multinational restaurants to local food growers, entrepreneurs
and underground cooks to give fresh voices a platform.
Taking you from simple promotion to being part of a premium, global media ecosystem that dictates trends and captures worldwide attention.
Fifth Taste Films is a unique collaboration building the bold new food-adventure world the industry has been waiting for.
Meet The Team
Creative Director
Alex Emanuel
Alex is an award-winning producer-director and self-shooting filmmaker whose work combines cinematic craft with emotional access.
Across films for Netflix, Channel 4, Discovery+, BBC, The Times and National Geographic, Alex has built a reputation for drawing intimate, honest performances from contributors and presenters in high-pressure environments, from emergency medicine and social crisis to wild landscapes and adventure-led factual storytelling.
His recent work includes Netflix’s Critical, Channel 4’s Unreported World and Discovery+ adventure series Chasing Ocean Giants. His work has been recognised by the RTS, Grierson Awards and Press Gazette Future of Media Awards for films including My Baby, Psychosis and Me, David Baddiel: Jews Don’t Count and Untold: The Secret World of Fight Clubs.
Alex first worked with Kurt Zdesar and Jordan Sclare while producing and directing Faking It: Fish Fryer to Sushi Chef at Chotto Matte. That collaboration became the seed of Fifth Taste Films.
Managing Director
Donna Blackburn
Donna is an award-winning Production and Operations Officer with over 230 hours of major broadcast television.
Her work ranges from fast-turnarounds and ob-docs to high-end drama reconstruction, science, and history for the BBC, Channel 4, Discovery, and National Geographic, among others.
Credits include the RTS-winning Richard III: The King in the Carpark, three seasons of the global phenomenon Gold Rush—a team of 150 across the Yukon—the Emmy-nominated Secrets of the Solar System, and the BBC1 primetime feature Linford. From the "parbuckling" of the Costa Concordia to blowing up aircraft for the BBC, Donna’s work is defined by an ability to turn massive scale into intimate storytelling.
As well as pioneering the first corporate unit at Darlow Smithson, Donna has run films for icons from Aston Martin and Virgin Galactic to John Lewis and Unilever. As co-founder of Fifth Taste Films, she now leads the studio’s strategy and operations, bringing documentary rigour and cinematic energy to the world of online-first platforms.