Ben Lawrence

2026 AACTA Award winner for Best Director for a factual TV series - Ben's films have screened at festivals including Toronto, Busan, Sydney, Edinburgh, Clermont-Ferrand, Sheffield, DocNYC, Palm Springs, Sitges and Sao Paulo. 

In 2022 he was nominated for Australia's most prestigious documentary film journalism award - The Walkley Documentary Award. He is a four-time Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award nominee and four-time Australian Writers Guild Award winner across feature film, documentary and podcast categories. 

In 2020 he was awarded the Australian Directors Guild highest award and the AWG Best Screenplay Award from for his feature film, Hearts and Bones - which starred Hugo Weaving and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. 

His 2018 documentary, Ghosthunter, won the Sydney Film Festival Best Documentary and was nominated for the prestigious Illuminate Award at Sheffield Doc Fest.  

Ben has also directed factual series, including The People Vs. Robodebnt, The Jury, Stuff the British Stole and theFour Corners true-crime investigative series, Exposed. Now on Netflix. 

His latest documentary, Ithaka, was an AACTA Best Documentary nominee and opened both the Barcelona & Berlin Human Rights Film festivals - where it won the audience award and screened in competition at the Sydney, DocNYC, Sheffield and DocEdge Festival, where Ben was awarded Best International Director.