Production studio Zandland today announces the launch of Human, its flagship original YouTube documentary series – created, funded and distributed in-house.
Dropping monthly from September, Human is hosted by filmmaker and Zandland founder Ben Zand. Each episode focuses on one extraordinary person or collective, using their story to explore a much broader global issue. From gang-afflicted neighbourhoods in Chicago to exclusive jail access in Colorado, to the Israel-Gaza conflict, remote communities in Central Africa, to white-only towns in South Africa.
Filmmaker and Zandland founder Ben Zand says “Human is a significant milestone in Zandland’s story. We’re not waiting around to be commissioned or asking for permission from gatekeepers, we’re commissioning the content we want to see ourselves and delivering it straight to the consumer. With this series, we are giving audiences raw, unfiltered access to communities and conversations they’d never normally see – not to sensationalize, but to humanize in an increasingly divided global society. This is a series you’d never see on TV”
Zandland has already filmed multiple episodes across the globe, with new episodes to be released monthly starting September 2025.
The first season includes:
Inside Jail – unprecedented access to a jail in Colorado, where Zand embeds with both inmates and officers to explore justice, power and punishment in America’s incarceration system.
White Only – access to an Afrikaner town in post-apartheid South Africa, where Zand investigates racial identity, resentment and the return of ethnonationalism.
The Tribe – living with one of the world’s most remote communities in Central Africa, reflecting on what modernity, connection and happiness look like off the grid.
Israel-Gaza – a special episode looking into one of the most defining conflicts of our time.
Naked & Free – joining life at a nudist retreat in New Orleans, asking what we reveal about ourselves when we strip everything away.
Rent-A-Girlfriend – experiencing Brazil’s intimacy industry firsthand, unpicking loneliness, masculinity and the transactional dynamics of modern love.
Chicago Gangs – on the ground with young people trying to escape gang life in America’s most dangerous neighbourhoods.
Pippa Considine
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