As a director and screenwriter, Zach Bandler’s films are geared toward international stories about health equity. He served as a 2022 Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health with the Global Brain Health Institute in Dublin, Ireland, where his work continues to intersect with advocacy for those with cognitive and psychological conditions. His first collaboration to emerge from this endeavor, KOKO SUZANNE (2025), is a short film made in the Democratic Republic of Congo alongside Congolese cast and crew, and serves as the main component in an impact initiative lead by Congolese physicians in order to help individuals and families navigating dementia. The film was recently acquired by CANAL+ for distribution across Africa and Europe on television and streaming.

Zach’s feature film screenplay LAND OF THE YOUNG was chosen by Francis Ford Coppola as the winner of the 2023 American Zoetrope Screenplay Competition and was a Semifinalist for the 2024 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. With a grant from the Alzheimer's Association, Zach co-facilitated a workshop with Irish poet Eithne Hand in Sligo, Ireland, supporting people living with dementia and their caregivers in the creation of material is being adapted into poetry featured onscreen in LAND OF THE YOUNG. His feature screenplay ALTERED was a Finalist in the 2023 ScreenCraft Feature Competition, and is currently in early pre-production to film in the fall of 2026.

His film THE LIGHTKEEPER (2018) was named the final recipient of the CINE Golden Eagle Award for Narrative Short Film, an award recognizing rising filmmakers since 1962 which has honored the early careers of Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Ron Howard and others. His medical comedy short TORN (2019) premiered online with Directors Notes, and his mid-length drama film THE STAIRS (2016) won the Audience Award at the Ashland Independent Film Festival.

Zach is currently the inaugural Miller Artist in Residence at the University of California, San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center, where he is researching the neurocinematics of empathy and their application in more impactful narrative filmmaking.

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