Sahar Zand

A multimedia reporter and filmmaker with extensive experience in long-form current affairs and documentaries, Sahar Zand has fronted and produced a range of award-winning stories from across the world, for the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Vice and a number of other international broadcasters.

Much of Zand’s work has often been from within hostile environments, with a special focus on under-reported human-interest stories. Zand strives for high-impact storytelling, and has reported on a diverse range of topics from conflict and human rights abuses, to gender and mental health issues. She excels in exploring sensitive subjects with empathy, creativity and journalistic rigor.

Zand was born in Iran and lived the first 12 years of her life there, before escaping the country with her mother and sister to avoid political persecution. After several years spent getting smuggled from border to border and relocating between refugee camps across Europe, she eventually found herself in Glasgow, before moving first to Peterborough, then London. The adversity faced during these years has given Zand an insight into marginalized communities, and allows her to report from a unique perspective rarely seen in mainstream media. Her radio documentary ‘Me, the refugee’ is a compelling insight into her life experiences, and is one of the many vivid, intimate and hard-hitting radio pieces she has produced for channels across the BBC.

Zand’s prominence as a disruptive, creative and distinguished journalist of the digital age has put her in high demand to regularly give talks about journalism, storytelling and film making at festivals and universities around the world, from One World Media to the MBN Y Forum in South Korea. Zand is regularly interviewed about her work and has been featured on international news publications, including The Times, Financial Times, The Spectator, Huffington Post and NPR.