Laurent Richard

Founder and executive director

Laurent is a French award-winning documentary filmmaker, producer, and founder of Forbidden Stories, a network of investigative journalists devoted to keeping stories alive. Richard has directed documentaries for 20 years.

He was a Knight-Wallace Fellow in 2017 at the University of Michigan and was named European Journalist of the year 2018 by the Prix Europa in Berlin. Read more.

Sandrine Rigaud

Editor-in-chief

Investigative journalist Sandrine Rigaud directed feature length documentaries and investigated different corporate sectors while working at Première Lignes Télévision.

Her documentaries for the highly reputed inquiry magazine “Cash Investigation” have been shortlisted and awarded in many festivals (DIG Awards, Europa Prize, Fipadoc, FIGRA, Seoul Eco Festival). She reported in Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Qatar and Tunisia after the Arab Spring. Read more.

Cécile Schilis-Gallego

Journalist

Cécile Schilis-Gallego does investigative research for Forbidden Stories.

She previously worked as a data journalist for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) where she contributed to international collaborative investigations such as the Implant Files, the Paradise Papers and Panama Papers.

Audrey Travere

Journalist

Audrey Travère, who worked for France Inter and “Les Décodeurs” at the french newspaper Le Monde, has been an investigative journalist at Forbidden Stories since 2019.

Paloma de Dinechin

Journalist

Paloma de Dinechin joined Forbidden Stories in 2019.

In 2017, she went to the state of Guerrero in Mexico for the Mexican media Tercera Vía. In 2018, her documentary « Los niños lloran » denounced police violence against indigenous people in Araucania (Señal 3 La Victoria). In august 2019, she wrote various articles in the international section of the Monde.

Phineas Rueckert

Journalist

Phineas Rueckert joined Forbidden Stories as an investigative journalist in September 2020. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Global Citizen in New York City, where he reported on humanitarian issues.

He holds a joint master’s degree in journalism and human rights with a focus on Latin America from Sciences Po in Paris, and his previous work has been published in AFP, News Deeply and Atlas Obscura.

Clément Le Merlus

Journalist and web editor

Clément Le Merlus joined Forbidden Stories as a journalist in 2020. He is particularly in charge of web editing and communication, and is the Safe Box’s project officer.

He previously worked in New Zealand, within the New Zealand Olympic Committee communication department, and then for the country’s largest daily newspaper, The New Zealand Herald. Graduated in investigative journalism in Sciences Po Rennes, he also reported for Libération.

Sara Guglielmi

Development manager

Sara Guglielmi has been in charge of administration, finance and fundraising for Forbidden Stories since August 2020.

She previously worked for three years as a project manager at CFI, the French agency for media development, on projects in South East Asia, Caucasus and Arab world. Then, she worked one year as a consultant at UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) on projects related to journalism education.