Jordan Bryon, a transgender filmmaker from rural Australia, is a recipient of two BAFTAs, two Emmys, a Human Rights Press Award and more. He currently resides in Bosnia after living in Afghanistan for six years. His filmmaking has spanned a spectrum of stories in Afghanistan, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Uganda, Peru, Ecuador, India and Bosnia. He speaks Dari and Japanese. His audience award-winning debut feature film, Birds of the Borderlands, delved into the lives of queer Arabs in Jordan and Lebanon, and resulted in his deportation from both nations. Thereafter, Jordan moved to Afghanistan. His Director/DP portfolio includes Battle Dogs (Discovery Channel), a doc-series spotlighting animal rescue in Kabul; Emmy award-winning Brave (Great Big Story) about female journalists risking their lives to tell the news, Escape From Afghanistan (Dateline), tracking Australian military contractors' escape from the Taliban, and a Human Rights Press award winner and Walkley runner-up; Rehab Hell (ARTE), unveiling Kabul’s harrowing drug rehabilitation and garnering 7 million views on YouTube; and Children of the Taliban (Channel 4), charting the polarized lives of four children under Taliban dominion, which won two BAFTAs, and was nominated for Peabody, Grierson and Rory Peck awards. His DP portfolio includes Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (Netflix), marking the 20th anniversary of 9/11; Audience award-winning The El Masri Case investigating a German citizen abducted by the CIA in 2003; In Her Hands (Netflix), a tribute to Afghanistan's youngest female mayor, with four awards and four nominations; and America and The Taliban for PBS, Frontline. During the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, Jordan remained in Kabul and embedded with a Taliban unit for the New York Times to make The Martyrs Were Lucky, a psychological portrait of a despondent young fighter. Concurrently, Jordan co-helmed Transition, a critically acclaimed and personal film juxtaposing his own gender transition with Afghanistan's transition under the Taliban, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and is now available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV in the US.
Australia