Biography
A multi-produced and award-winning screenwriter known for mixed narratives, political-intrigue, and broken relationships in drama, comedy, action-thriller, and Transcendentalism, Benjamin Budd also brings extensive backgrounds in conflict, crime, academia, geopolitics, Fine Art, and more.
Concurrent with over 20-years in film and TV, Ben pursued supporting interests in the international sphere. Building on an undergrad in the Arts and an early background in the collaborative environments of advertising, Ben followed passions in film, talent, comedy, and writing, placing in such contests as the Nicholl and the Page International.
When the opportunity arose, he traveled to Britain to earn an MA in a subset of International Relations concerning irregular conflict and crime in post-conflict zones, and soon began writing features for a US film company.
In 2013 Ben accepted a job in Kurdish Northern Iraq teaching at a local grade-school, including Internally Displaced Children. Over two-years he lived with no security locally in Erbil, seeing Mosul fall just 40-miles west, and the nearby Ministry of Justice attacked. He has traveled on the ground throughout the region; Kirkuk, Halabja, Diyarbakir, Sulimainyah, etc, and on one accidental detour, by bus through the Mosul suburbs.
Ben survived the April 17th, 2015 car-bomb and small arms fire near the US consulate in Ainkawa.
While continuing to write film, Ben went on to perform ad hoc country risk analysis and consult on extremism and media, particularly around the constitutive nature on epistemic identity, being published, and delivering a paper in London on the subject. He also went on to pursue high-risk security credentials in South Africa, including volunteer nightshifts in a mobile ambulance through the Cape Town shantytowns where body-armor was compulsory. He has taught Hostile Environment Awareness Training to deploying humanitarians, including a well-known A-list actress, and provides remote production security to media crews, such as in the Kenosha, WI unrest.
In 2025 Ben was a guest speaker at a program at Leiden University's campus in The Hague, Netherlands working with postgraduate students using creative writing to visualize future warfare.
