Ben Briand

Benjamin Briand (born 4 March 1980 in Kew, Victoria) is an Australian film director.

Ben is a writer and director working across narrative, installation, documentary, music video and commercial film projects.

In 2007 he wrote and directed Hammer Bay. The short film project was the result of winning the People's Choice Award at the first annual Optus ONE80PROJECT. The award was a joint venture with Sony Ericsson, Optus and MTV Australia.

From 2009 to 2010, the Cannes Young Director Award winner completed three short films back to back, ‘Apricot’, ‘Castor & Pollux’ and ‘Some Static Started’. This trilogy explored Briand's usual themes of memory and identity. 'Apricot' was hugely successful and brought Briand's name to the global stage as a name to watch. The cult short film was voted Best Narrative film on Vimeo by its 3 million users at the Vimeo Awards in New York City 2010. The same year he received a nomination for Best Director by the Australian Director’s Guild for Some Static Started.

In 2011 Australian film industry publication Encore Magazine selected Ben as one of the top 10 industry faces to watch.

His most recently completed short film 'Blood Pulls A Gun' had its world premiere at the 2014 South by South West (SXSW) Film Festival. It was selected from a record number of over 4,000 entries to screen as one of 23 films in competition for the Grand Jury Award, making it the only Australian short in the competitive narrative program that year. Follow up screenings at prestigious festivals included the BFI London Film Festival and the Melbourne International Film Festival where he was awarded Best Emerging Filmmaker. He also earned a Best Director nomination by the Directors Guild of Australia the same year.

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