Benjamin Zand

Benjamin Zand (born 2 February 1991) is an Iranian-British[2] documentary maker, journalist and director from Liverpool, England. He was previously a documentary executive at BBC Studios[3] and former head of the BBC documentary team, BBC Pop Up.[4] He now runs his own production company, ZANDLAND Films.

Benjamin Zand
Born (1991-02-02) 2 February 1991[1]
Liverpool, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
Alma materEdinburgh Napier University
OccupationPresenter, reporter and documentary maker, editor and head of BBC Pop Up
EmployerBBC
Notable credit(s)
BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Our World, BBC News, BBC World News, The Travel Show, BBC Pop Up
Partner(s)Isobel Yeung
Websitebenjaminzand.com

Early life

Zand attended Bowring Comprehensive School in Huyton in Merseyside.[5] His father is from Tehran in Iran.

Career

Zand studied journalism in university. During his time there, he started a travel website and began video production. His first documentary was called Tehrangeles, featuring Iranians living in Los Angeles.[2] After finishing his studies, he worked with production companies and eventually became a producer at the BBC World Service working on numerous radio programmes, including BBC World Have Your Say. After about a year, he moved on to BBC World News, as a producer and social media manager of BBC Facebook pages.

Zand then became a video journalist and reporter for BBC News, also becoming part of the BBC's video innovation lab. During this time, he covered stories from far-right ultranationalism[6] to Native Americans[7] in South Dakota. He also launched BBC Trending and BBC Newsbeat's video offering, and worked for the BBC's The Travel Show. Towards the end of 2014, he started the BBC's "mobile bureau" called BBC Pop Up with a BBC colleague.[8][9] Here, he travelled across the US crowdsourcing story ideas and making documentaries for BBC World News and BBC News.[10][11]

Benjamin then went on to become Editor of BBC Pop Up.[4] Managing a team that flew around the world and made digital-first documentaries for an international audience. The documentaries now have millions of views online.

After working for different departments across the BBC making documentaries, including BBC Two, BBC Three and Panorama, Ben then signed an exclusive contract to make his documentaries through the BBC Studios Documentary Unit. He became a Senior Development Executive on his own films as well as the director and author.

In 2017, Ben set up his own production company, ZANDLAND Films. ZANDLAND Films now makes documentaries with media organisations around the world.

Ben also makes podcasts, including The Next Episode[12] - a youth orientated podcast on BBC Sounds.

Additionally while working as a journalist for BBC, Zand met VICE News journalist Isobel Yeung. The two announced their dating relationship via their Instagram accounts in 2018.


Documentaries

A list featuring some of Benjamin Zand's documentaries.

The Mysterious Murder of Nipsey Hussle

Director Ben Zand sets out to unravel the mystery of Nipsey Hussle's murder. Who wanted him dead? Was it the police? The government? Or an old gang dispute?[13]

Extinction Rebellion: Last Chance to Save the World

A huge new global protest movement is changing public attitudes to climate change. Ben Zand gains access to the most high-profile activist group, Extinction Rebellion.[14]

Confessions of a Serial Killer

The documentary by filmmaker Ben Zand, created by ZANDLAND Films, travelled from California to Mississippi in order to investigate the story of Samuel Little. Serial killer Samuel Little claims to have murdered more than 90 women across the United States over a four-decade period, and, although the number of victims rose and rose during his rampage, the crimes were seemingly ignored. The documentary aired on Channel 4 in the UK in May 2019. The Times gave it a 4 star rating, stating: "Zand has a fresh, informal presenting style, which allows him to ask hard questions in a low-key way that gets answers."[15] [16]

Is This Sexual Harassment?

Social experiment by journalist and presenter Ben Zand in which a group of people come together to try to understand what constitutes sexual harassment.[17]

World's Most Dangerous Cities with Ben Zand

Zand visited "the most dangerous cities on earth, coming face to face with killers and terror". In this series he visited Caracas in Venezuela, Kabul in Afghanistan and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. [18]

R Kelly: Sex, Girls & Videotapes

Zand explored allegations surrounding the sex life of R&B legend R Kelly, including accusations of holding women against their will in his home in Atlanta and running a degrading sex cult — allegations he denies.[19]

R Kelly: The Sex Scandal Continues

In this follow-up film, Zand "gets to the heart of the latest allegations". Ben followed the story of the Savage family, and their daughter's involvement with R Kelly.[20]

Trump: A Very British Welcome?

As controversial US President Donald Trump visited the UK, Zand followed both sides of the Trump protests.[21]

Ben Zand: Cults, Gangs and God

On 18 January 2018, a three-part miniseries was released, in which he visited Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica.[22][23]

Ben Zand in Dictatorland

In this series Zand travelled to three countries, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Belarus, to see what life is like living under a dictator. He met dissidents being tracked by the state, and those close to the rulers themselves. It was broadcast on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer.[24]

Africa's Million Pound Migrant Trail

This documentary broadcast on BBC One's Panorama programme looked at life along the migrant trail that runs through sub-Saharan Africa via Libya to Europe. Zand visited Nigeria, Niger and Libya, to take a look at what the European Union was doing to address the European migrant crisis, and to see how much money is being made.[25][26]

Lebanon Stories

As part of BBC Pop Up, Zand travelled to Lebanon for a month to make four documentaries, ranging from drug lords, refugees, Islamic extremism and LGBT rights.[27][28]

The Man Who Squeezes Muscles: Searching for Purple Aki

In this documentary. Zand goes in search of Akinwale Arobieke for BBC Three, and tries to understand a story that has been gripping Merseyside for decades.[29]anon, and takes a look at how the ongoing conflict in Syria means more Lebanese hashish is being produced than ever.

The Fish Bombers

For Channel 4's Unreported World, Zand visited Malaysian Borneo, where coral reefs face environmental disaster as local fishermen resort to drastic, destructive fishing methods to survive, including using explosives and sodium cyanide.[30]

Our World, Afrikaners on the Edge

After campus protests, some of South Africa's most prestigious universities agreed to stop teaching in Afrikaans; Zand travelled to South Africa to meet Afrikaners who fear for their future in the 'Rainbow Nation'.[31]

The Other Side of...

Zand travelled to Pakistan and Sudan to take a look at the countries away from the news headlines.[32]

Awards

Zand was named Young Talent of the Year at the 2016 Royal Television Society Journalism Awards. "The judges liked everything about Benjamin, the stories he'd found, the way he filmed them – normally on his own – and the way he told them. They found him original, fresh, provocative, versatile, and, of course, creative."[33]

References
  1. @BenjaminZand (2 February 2017). "It's my birthday I can eat tiny cakes whilst working on stories for Lebanese documentaries if I want to..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  2. Benjamin Zand (5 June 2012). Tehrangeles. Retrieved 7 May 2017 – via YouTube.
  3. "Benjamin Zand".
  4. Benjamin Zand on LinkedIn
  5. Ed Gove (6 February 2017). "8 steps to success: Journalist Benjamin Zand gives his tips on getting started". Royal Television Society.
  6. Britain First: The 'most dangerous far-right party'?. BBC News. 28 September 2015. Retrieved 7 May 2017 – via YouTube.
  7. America is a stolen country. BBC News. 2 January 2015. Retrieved 7 May 2017 – via YouTube.
  8. Jenny Shank (8 December 2014). "Inside BBC Pop Up, an Experimental Mobile News Bureau". MediaShift. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
  9. Gabriel Rosenberg (22 January 2015). "BBC Pop-Up reports from small town America". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
  10. "BBC Pop Up: Benjamin Zand". BBC News. 28 November 2014. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
  11. Anna Mae Ludlum (1 February 2015). "Q&A: BBC Pop-Up With Benjamin Zand". Arizona Daily Wildcat. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
  12. "BBC Sounds - The Next Episode - Downloads". BBC. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  13. "BBC Three - The Mysterious Murder of Nipsey Hussle". BBC. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  14. "BBC Three - Extinction Rebellion: Last Chance to Save the World?". BBC. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  15. Midgley, Carol (28 May 2019). "Thatcher: A Very British Revolution review — how the Iron Lady cleared her revolting cabinet". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
  16. "C4's Chilling New Doc Profiles A Prolific U.S. Serial Killer That Almost Got Away". Bustle. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
  17. "BBC Three - Is This Sexual Harassment?". BBC. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
  18. World's Most Dangerous Cities with Ben Zand. BBC. 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  19. R Kelly: Sex, Girls & Videotapes. BBC Three. 28 March 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  20. Ben Allen (31 May 2018). "BBC3's R Kelly: The Sex Scandal Continues suggests that the singer's time is nearly up". Radio Times. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  21. Trump: A Very British Welcome?. BBC Three. 16 July 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  22. Ben Zand: Cults, Gangs and God. BBC World News. 18 January 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  23. "Ben Zand in new BBC series Cults, Gangs and Gods". Curtis Brown. 15 January 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  24. Dictatorland. BBC Three. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  25. Africa's Billion Pound Migrant Trail at IMDb
  26. Africa's Billion Pound Migrant Trail. Panorama. BBC One. 18 September 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  27. Lebanon Stories. BBC News Channel. 5 May 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  28. Meeting a Lebanese drug lord. BBC Pop Up. 2 March 2017 – via YouTube.
  29. The Man Who Squeezes Muscles: Searching for Purple Aki. BBC Three. 12 September 2016 – via YouTube.
  30. "The Fish Bombers". Unreported World. Channel 4. 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  31. Afrikaners on the Edge. Our World. BBC World News. 17 September 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  32. The Other Side of Pakistan. BBC World News. 26 August 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  33. "Television Journalism Awards 2016". Royal Television Society. 17 February 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2017.


Media offices
New title Editor and head of BBC Pop Up
2016–present		 Incumbent
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