Biography

Braun is best known as a writer-director for his feature documentaries Darfur Now (2007), Betting on Zero (2017), and ¡Viva Maestro! (2022). Darfur Now was named one of 2007’s top five documentaries by the Broadcast Critics and the National Board of Review. The film won the NAACP Image Award and earned Braun the International Documentary Association’s Emerging Filmmaker of the Year Award. His docu-thriller Betting On Zero, about the efforts of hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Latina activist Julie Contreras to expose Herbalife as a pyramid scheme, received a WGA nomination for best feature documentary of 2017 and a special jury mention for investigative work at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. His most recent film, ¡Viva Maestro!, about conductor Gustavo Dudamel, is set against violence and unrest in Dudamel’s home of Venezuela. The film is an exploration of art in a time of political crisis. ¡Viva Maestro!, his second film with Participant, was nominated for the WGA award for best feature documentary of 2022 and is streaming on HBO MAX. In 2008 Movie Maker Magazine named him one of 25 filmmakers whose work has changed the world. He’s a member of the Writer’s Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Braun is the inaugural holder of The Joseph Campbell Endowed Chair in Cinematic Ethics and Professor of Cinematic Arts in the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen and Television at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, where he’s taught screenwriting for nearly 30 years. Since 2020, he has taught courses and led a series of public screenings with the Founding Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, on war, justice, democracy, and global narratives. He regularly lectures, conducts seminars, and serves as a consultant around the United States and the world. His students have won or been nominated for some of the most prestigious cinema and television prizes: Academy Awards, the Palme d’Or, Sundance Festival Awards, European Media Prizes, and Emmys. In 2018 Variety named him one of the world’s Top Ten Teachers in Film and TV.

Braun joined Bennington as director of the MFA in Screenwriting Low-Residency Program in Fall 2025.

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