Lucian Read

Lucian Read is a multi-Emmy award-winning documentary director, cinematographer, producer and former conflict photographer. Between 2004 and 2010, he spent more than three years embedded with US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and witnessed many of the pivotal events of both wars. He is the director of the 2024 feature documentaries LIONS OF MESOPOTAMIA and PERSONAL COURAGE and the National Geographic special OPERATION ARCTIC CURE. He was creator, show-runner and director of photography for both seasons of the Norman Lear executive- produced EPIX documentary series AMERICA DIVIDED. In his capacity as executive producer and director of photography for the series, Read worked directly with series talent, including Zach Galifianakis, Peter Sarsgaard, Norman Lear, Nick Offerman and others across an array of stories. Read was awarded Emmys in 2015, 2017 and 2019 for investigations of deaths on the US-Mexico border and the use of child labor in agriculture. He was co-producer and principal cinematographer for the Primetime Emmy-winning first season of the climate change documentary series, YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY. For the series, Read filmed in locations around the world and collaborated to produce stories on climate change and the Arab Spring in Syria, Yemen and Egypt. From 2011-2013, he directed the Occupy Wall Street feature documentary 99% -- an official 2013 Sundance selection. His work as a producer for the news magazine program DAN RATHER REPORTS from the Afghan War was nominated for an Emmy in 2010. Other cinematography credits include the feature films YEAR ONE, TIME TO CHOOSE, LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD and MAURIZIO CATTELAN: BE RIGHT BACK, and documentary series THE FOURTH ESTATE, DEADLIEST CATCH and VICE on HBO. His photojournalism work during the Iraq and Afghan Wars for publications such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek and Rolling Stone garnered a World Press Photo Award in 2006. A collection of his work is in the permanent collection of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia. A large format photography book of this work, All of Which I Saw, was published IN 2019. Read is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Explorers Club.