Adam Benzine is a British filmmaker and journalist. He received critical appraisal and widespread acclaim for his

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

documentary '' Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah'', which examined the life and work of French director

Claude Lanzmann Claude Lanzmann (; 27 November 1925 – 5 July 2018) was a French filmmaker, best known for the Holocaust documentary film ''Shoah'' (1985), which consists of nine and a half hours of oral testimony from Holocaust survivors, without historical f ...

. The film earned Benzine an Oscar nomination in the Best Documentary (Short Subject) category at the

88th Academy Awards The 88th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2015 and took place on February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, 5:30 p.m. PST. D ...

, in addition to nominations from the

Grierson Awards Grierson: The British Documentary Awards, commonly known as The Grierson Awards, are awards bestowed by The Grierson Trust to recognise innovative and exciting documentary films, in honour of the pioneering Scottish documentary filmmaker John ...

, the

Canadian Screen Awards The Canadian Screen Awards () are awards given for artistic and technical merit in the film industry recognizing excellence in Canadian film, English-language television, and digital media ( web series) productions. Given annually by the Academy ...

, the

IDA Documentary Awards International Documentary Association (IDA), founded in 1982, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) that promotes nonfiction filmmakers, and is dedicated to increasing public awareness for the documentary genre. Their major program areas are: Advocacy, Film ...

, the Banff Rockie Awards and the

Cinema Eye Honors The Cinema Eye Honors are awards recognizing excellence in nonfiction or documentary filmmaking and include awards for the disciplines of directing, producing, cinematography and editing. The awards are presented each January in New York and have b ...

. The documentary took four years to complete. Benzine's interview with Lanzmann was Lanzmann's first since 1985, the year ''Shoah'' was finished. Benzine currently serves as the Canadian Bureau Chief for British news publisher ''C21 Media'', before which he served as Associate Editor for Canadian non-fiction news publisher ''

Realscreen Brunico Communications is a Canadian magazine publishing company."Desktop tabloid publishing firm sports 2 publications and a profit". ''The Globe and Mail'', October 9, 1989. The company specializes primarily in online trade magazines serving medi ...

''. Prior to his career in film, he studied BSc Multimedia Technology & Design at

Brunel University London Brunel University of London (BUL) is a Public university, public Research universities, research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It is named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a Victorian era, Victorian engineer and pione ...

and MA Magazine Journalism at

City University London City, University of London was a public university from 1966 to 2024 in London, England. It merged with St George's, University of London to form City St George's, University of London in August 2024. The names "City, University of London" and ...

before working as Online Editor for British weekly trade newspaper ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as ''Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music We ...

''. An Op-ed Benzine published in the ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper and the flagship publication of the American-owned Postmedia Network. It is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Monday released as a digital e-edition only.

'', in September 2019, compared the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

(TIFF) with the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

. Benzine quoted Kiva Reardon, at TIFF, who disputed Venice's festival's director, Alberta Barbera's claim that the reason he hadn't scheduled more films from female directors was that they just weren't making enough good films. In 2020, he made the documentary '' The Curve'', which is about America's response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The film was released on the internet a week before the

2020 United States presidential election United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 2020. The Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and California junior senator Kamala H ...

References

External links

* British film directors British journalists British documentary filmmakers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Alumni of Brunel University London Alumni of City, University of London {{UK-film-bio-stub