ABOUT

Zak is an Emmy and PGA award-winning documentary filmmaker, with more than 20 years in the non-fiction field.

Most recently, Zak produced The Luckiest Guy in the World, a docuseries about the life and career NBA Legend Bill Walton, directed by Steve James for ESPN's 30 for 30, which premiered at SXSW 2023 and won the Audience Award.

The Ants and the Grasshopper, a film Zak produced and co-directed with Raj Patel, premiered at Mountainfilm, went on to screen at Sheffield Doc Fest was acquired by Giant Pictures and released theatrically in the Spring of 2023.  The film collected festival awards for Best Feature and a number of Special Jury Awards.

In 2021, Zak produced All These Sons for Concordia Studio, with co-directors Bing Liu and Joshua Altman, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was distributed by Gravitas Ventures. Later that year, Zak produced 16 & Recovering for MTV for which he received an RFK Journalism Award. 

Prior to that, Zak produced City So Real with producer/director Steve James. The docuseries premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 and was later broadcast on NatGeo. The series earned nominations from the IDA Awards, The Independent Spirit Awards, the Primetime Emmys and went on to win a Cinema Eye Honor for Outstanding Nonfiction Series. In 2020, City So Real was included in President Barack Obama's annual list of favorite movies & television series of the year. 

Previously, Zak produced the critically acclaimed film Life Itself, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at the 67th Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Documentary and 5 Cinema Eye Honors. The National Board of Review and Broadcast Film Critics Association awarded Life Itself their Best Documentary Awards, while Entertainment Weekly listed the film in its top 5 films of the year. Life Itself was released theatrically by Magnolia Pictures and broadcast on CNN. The film was also shortlisted by The Academy Awards in the Best Documentary category.

Zak also co-produced the critically acclaimed film The Interrupters which premiered at Sundance and went on to collect awards at film festivals worldwide. The film received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary and was honored by the Cinema Eye Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Filmmaking. The New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, and LA Times all hailed The Interrupters as one of the year’s best films.

Zak also produced the multiple-award-winning Saving Mes Aynak, which premiered at IDFA and has been broadcast in over 70 countries; co-produced At the Death House Door, which premiered at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival, then later was short-listed in the Best Documentary category by the Academy Awards; and was the associate producer of Prisoner of Her Past, Kartemquin Film’s co-production with the Chicago Tribune.

Zak has also worked as a location sound recordist on nearly 20 documentaries produced by Kartemquin Films. He began his career on staff at Kartemquin, where he stayed for more than a decade, serving as Director of Production until 2012. 

Throughout his career, Zak has also produced or directed a variety of documentary-style projects for such clients as Toyota, Cinelan, BD Veritor, WTTW, and GroupM, among others. Previously based in Chicago for over 25 years, Zak and family relocated to Western New York in the Spring of 2024.

Currently, Zak is developing several documentary projects.