Ben Kolak is a documentary cinematographer and director focused on social change, education and the arts. His first feature, Scrappers, made critic Roger Ebert’s list of the top documentaries for 2010 and his cinematography credits include the Netflix series Ugly Delicious, the PBS series Firsthand, The A.V. Club series Popcorn Politics, and the New York Times Daily 360. His work has also appeared on NPR, The New Yorker, Hulu, Univision, Al-Jazeera, Vice, Euronews, and The Wall Street Journal.

Ben has worked extensively in stereoscopic 3-D, shooting Westermann (2023), a feature documentary. In 2018 Ben became a licensed and insured UAV drone operator, and has subsequently contributed aerial footage to many projects. Ben often works as a 1-person band, also recording audio. He has extensive experience shooting interviews with the Eye Direct, including working with academy-award winning director Morgan Neville.

In 2020, Ben’s documentary, Stateville Calling, aired on Illinois PBS affiliates as part of the Reel Midwest independent film series and was nominated for a regional emmy. His latest feature documentary, Cat City (2023), distributed by First Run Features, is screening at festivals, independent theaters and community events across the country. In 2021, Ben shot a feature documentary about teen mental health for WETA, the PBS affiate in Washington DC, as well as the award-winning short Swimming Through. In 2021-2022 Ben directed documentaries for Chicago’s PBS station WTTW and the US Dept. of Education about the impact of COVID and middle school math. Beginning in 2023, Ben shoots a series for the World Marathon Majors following diverse runners completing the six major marathons. Since 2019, Ben has been a member of the Fourcast Lab, a collective that creates alternate reality games. With the lab in 2022, Ben was a research fellow at the University of Chicago Neubauer Collegium, creating videos for an alternate reality game, Cene, that engaged middle schoolers around climate change.

Ben Kolak manages Truth & Documentary LLC, a 6-person production company serving non-profits, artists, journalism outlets and documentary filmmakers to underwrite original documentaries designed to inspire audiences to question the familiar and build empathy. Ben was a founding partner of Scrappers Film Group LLC, which from 2013-2020 followed a similar model.

Ben is a graduate of The University of Chicago (AB ‘06 Cinema Studies, Philosophy) and lives in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood with his wife, Akemi Hong, their son, and two corgis. He enjoys basketball, cross fit, camping, and teaching documentary production. He has taught video to urban teens full-time over two summers, and led video workshops for adults through UChicago Booth’s Polsky Center as well as at the Hyde Park Art Center and the Public Media Institute. Ben is a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance, Society of Professional Journalists, and vice board chair of the Media Burn Video Archive.