Production studio Zandland is launching Human, an original YouTube documentary series – created, funded and distributed entirely in-house.
In a move that the company said signals its commitment to independent storytelling, Zandland has chosen to “bypass traditional gatekeepers, and deliver the kind of documentaries it believes the world needs right now, directly to its audience”.
Dropping monthly from September, each episode of Human focuses on one extraordinary person or collective, using their story to explore a 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, the series is designed as an antidote to division – helping audiences understand the world, and each other, one story at a time.
Filmmaker and Zandland founder Ben Zand said: “Human is a significant milestone in Zandland’s story. We’re not waiting around to be commissioned, 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 sensationalise, but to humanise in an increasingly divided global society. This is a series you’d never see on TV.”
Zandland has already filmed multiple episodes. The first season includes:
Inside Jail: 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: deep 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: an 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 (pictured).
