Emmy Award-winning, Columbus Film Festival Award-winning and American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Westinghouse Award-winning Lionel Friedberg was born in South Africa. He began his career working in the first television station in Central Africa – in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) – in 1961. He later photographed 18 feature motion pictures as Director of Photography in South Africa and then expanded his career to directing numerous dramatic TV episodes as well as writing, photographing and directing scores of documentaries and non-fiction productions.
For many years he was Chairman of the South African Film & Television Technicians Association (SAFTTA.) In 1966 he worked in Canada as a cinematographer with the prestigious National Film Board of Canada in Montreal. After a long and successful career running his own company as producer, writer, cinematographer and director on a variety of productions in South Africa he moved to the United States in 1986.
For the past 35 years he has specialized in documentaries, filming all over the world and winning numerous awards including a Primetime Emmy Award for cinematography. He has worked for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the National Geographic Society, Discovery Channel, Arts & Entertainment cable network (A&E), American Movie Classics (AMC), The History Channel, regional television stations and many corporate clients. He is the author of three non-fiction books and is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestselling author.
He is a vegan, environmentalist and supporter of numerous animal rights causes. His interests include ancient history, cosmology, aviation, classical music, collecting rare motion picture soundtracks, investigations into the nature of human consciousness and studies of the paranormal.
