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Benjamin Kempas
- Location:
- Germany, United Kingdom
- Languages:
- English, German
- Issues:
- Climate Change, Disability Rights, Health/Healthcare, Conflict, Security & Peace, Technology & Data, Human Rights
- Expertise:
- Impact Producing, Consulting, Impact Strategist/Advisor, Campaign Implementation, Designing impact guides, Alternative Distribution, Mentorship, Training, Impact evaluation
- Cultural/racial identity:
- A cultural refugee from Germany who became a new Scot.
- Self identification:
- Mostly male but wondering.
Bio
Coming from a background in documentary cinematography and award-winning filmmaking, Ben has spent the last 12 years developing and organising campaigns around films, also recognising how documentaries can influence public opinion and trigger social change. Clients across Europe and North America hire Ben as strategic consultant or hands-on outreach producer to identify and engage target audiences, create networks and partnerships, organise grassroots events, produce additional content or virtual screenings, and build action-focused websites. First as producer of marketing and distribution at the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) and since 2014 with his Scottish-based company Film & Campaign Ltd, Ben has worked on high-profile projects including The Oil Machine (more than 150 events so far), Die Kinder der Utopie (mobilising 20,000 visitors at 170 German cinema screens on a single day of action), Free Trip to Egypt (initiating the #PledgeToListen), I Am Breathing (organising a global screening day across 50 countries), Future My Love (inventing ‘pay-it-forward’ VOD), Bugs (building BUGSfeed, a story universe about edible insects), and Moving Docs, a pan-European initiative for audience development. Throughout his work, Ben has been focusing on the best solutions for showing films online, from pushing the limits of VOD self-distribution to enabling remote participation in live events. More recently, triggered by the pandemic and commissioned by the Doc Society, he has been researching and producing impact screenings online, with all guests joining remotely, yet preserving the feeling of a live event to the best extent possible. Ben specialises in adapting NationBuilder campaigning software for outreach work, working for organisations like SDI, Auto Images, Meridian Hill Pictures, Danish Documentary, WG Film, Fathers Network Scotland, or Van Jones’s Magic Labs Media. Ben is well-known in the documentary industry from his time as volunteer co-host of The D-Word (2001 to 2014), helping to build a worldwide online community of more than 10,000 documentary professionals. He is a frequent consultant, speaker and tutor at film industry events across Europe.
