Biography
Brandt Andersen is a writer, director, and producer. In 2020, he wrote and directed the live-action short film Refugee, starring Yasmine Al Massri, Massa Daoud, Omar Sy, and Jason Beghe. The film premiered at the Cairo International Film Festival, was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and received awards for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Drama Short at the French Riviera Film Festival.
Andersen has produced notable films including Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal; Lone Survivor, featuring Mark Wahlberg; 2 Guns, with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg; Martin Scorsese's Silence, starring Adam Driver; and American Made, starring Tom Cruise.
He has been actively involved in humanitarian work focused on aiding refugees. In October 2019, Andersen traveled with the CanDo Organization to a hospital and refugee camp in northeast Syria, where he interviewed and filmed medical staff amidst the U.S. troop withdrawal and the Turkish offensive. In 2017, in collaboration with CARE, he led a group of filmmakers to the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan to teach filmmaking to Syrian refugee teenagers. Additionally, Andersen has visited refugee camps in Greece and Italy with the United Nations.
In the business sphere, Andersen owned and managed the Utah Flash, an NBA G League team, from 2006 to 2013 before selling it to the Philadelphia 76ers.
From 1998 to 2005, Andersen founded and served as CEO of uSight, a technology company. In 2004, Inc. Magazine ranked uSight as the second fastest-growing company in the United States, making Andersen the youngest CEO on the list. He sold the company in 2005 and returned to school, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts.
