Ben Kempas

Ben Kempas is a cinematographer and documentary filmmaker and an experienced AVID editor. He lives in Munich where he studied at the University of Film and Television.

As a student at the Munich Film Academy, Ben started to focus on cultural and political subjects. He made films about a type designer, about the practices of tabloid television, and about the independence movement in Scotland (.TO BE A NATION AGAIN.) (http://expressive.tv/was/schotten/) in the run-up to the first Scottish Parliament after 300 years. Ben used to be a student by day, an editor by night.

Ben's film THE LOCH LONG MONSTER (http://www.expressive.tv/was/monster/) was sort of a breakthrough: Shortly after the film's premiere at the Munich International Documentary Festival, three of the protagonists received the Alternative Nobel Prize. The film was shown at various festivals and sold to ARTE and YLE.

In recent years, Ben has been doing a lot of camera work for other production companies, contributing to programmes for various ARD networks, Pro 7, Channel 4, RAI, the History Channel, and others. A journalist visa enables Ben to shoot many of these documentaries in the U.S.: looking behind the scenes of the Waldorf-Astoria, following a Bavarian start-up in Las Vegas, or portaying prisoners in a Louisiana boot camp.

With Alexander Dittner, Ben co-directed GEGEN DIE GRENZE (http://www.expressive.de/films/gegen_die_grenze/) , a contemporary history film commissioned by RBB (an ARD broadcaster). Ben has been running expressive.tv (http://www.expressive.de/welcome.html )for 15 years now and is currently busy touring festivals with latest film, the award-winning UPSTREAM BATTLE (http://www.upstreambattle.com/) which had its North American premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival.

Based in Germany and Scotland, expressive.tv makes television documentaries and provides services to other documentary producers. expressive.tv can help you find a producer and director, or a camera crew locally or travelling anywhere in the world, or an editing room with or without operator, as well as all sorts of other production services.

Since 2001, Ben has been co-hosting The D-Word (http://www.d-word.com/), a worldwide online community for documentary professionals with more than 1900 members in nearly 80 countries. He is also the webmaster of D-Word.com.

He produced a collaborative project and documentary events in collaboration with the European Documentary Network and Silverdocs.

The D-Word is co-hosted by its founder Doug Block in New York, Ben Kempas in Munich, and John Burgan in Ebeltoft (Denmark).

He is also a regular contributor to the DOX magazine published by the European Documentary Network.