Zach Caldwell

Documentary DP and photographer

Known for their raucous live shows, punk rock immigrant folk heroes Gogol Bordello delve into their past and present as they voyage home to Ukraine amidst a smattering of bombs.

Scream of My Blood: A Gogol Bordello Story

From Tesla to Twitter, Elon Musk has become the most influential businessman ever, but it required the masses to support his seemingly unreachable visions - the cult behind the man

VICE News Presents: Cult of Elon

Bakhmut has become a bloody vortex at the center of Ukraine's fight against invading Russian forces. With thousands dead after months of constant Russian attacks, the city is barely standing. VICE News spent two weeks inside the city embedded with soldiers, civilians and frontline workers trying to survive in the face of ceaseless violence.

The Battle for Bakhmut - 2022

In Uganda, illegal orphanages are a big business and needy children are often the lure.

Today, there are at least 300 unlicensed children’s homes throughout Uganda operating without government oversight. Their goal: foreign donations.

Websites and Facebook campaigns draw people in from around the world, asking them to sponsor children, volunteer, or sign up for travel packages.

The campaigns work. Uganda’s unregulated orphanages pull in nearly a quarter of a billion dollars a year from international donors — mainly from the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe.

“The people here that decide to operate a home, they get unsuspecting people to pay,” Mondo Kyateka, an assistant commissioner for the government ministry tasked to regulate children’s institutions, told VICE News. “And they use donated money to make themselves richer.”

The promise of financial windfall has pushed homes to recruit as many kids as possible — often forcing children to share beds in overcrowded dorm buildings without adequate supervision. A lack of government oversight combined with the open door to foreign volunteers means there’s no safeguard to protect children from abuse.

Often, the children aren’t even orphans.

Inside Uganda's Unregulated And Overcrowded Child Orphanage Industry

The Lion Man

(TV Series documentary) (1 episode) - Haiti: Death and Impunity (2021)

The Source

SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk, may be the third-richest person in the world, but to the residents of Boca Chica he's simply a ruthless businessman. This sleepy hamlet on the southernmost tip of Texas is home to retirees who were looking forward to enjoying their golden years in this beach paradise. Then SpaceX came to town.

Between Musk and Mars

Emmy®-winning documentary series VICE is known for delivering longform, on-the-ground journalism and newsworthy explorations of our world today.

VICE

It features stories told through a distinct reporting lens, immersive narratives and fresh perspectives on the important - and sometimes controversial - issues defining today's culture.

VICE Investigates

VICE News Tonight: Taken by ISIS

Tough Mudder: The Challenge Within

A documentary news series airing on VICE TV Wednesday and Thursday nights at 11p ET. Featuring deep investigations, and immersive pieces from all over the globe.

Vice News Tonight

In January of 1969, seventeen-year-old Hala emigrates with her family from Palestine to Michigan and attends a public high school with a dress code wherein girls cannot wear pants. With her limited grasp of the English language, Hala repeatedly disobeys the rules, wearing pants day after day.

Pioneer High

AMMA is a film about an elderly Indian grandmother, Amma, who travels from India to visit her family in America. Finding the family unhappily caught up in the pace of Western life, Amma uses her traditional Indian cooking to try to bring the family back together again.

Amma

Anthony Bourdain visits countries, delving into their political issues as well as indigenous food and culture.

Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Since late April, the Syrian regime and its Russian allies have launched near-daily airstrikes and shelling throughout the province of Idlib, the last rebel stronghold left after 8 years of bitter civil war. While Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claims he is targeting rebel terrorist groups, it’s clear that civilians like Mohammad are bearing the brunt of a relentless and indiscriminate bombing campaign. 

More than 700 civilians, including 300 children, have been killed since the latest offensive began. More than 400,000 more have been displaced in the same time frame, according to the United Nations, and the Syrian Civil Defense teams work round the clock to help struggling families move away from neighborhoods that are still being shelled. The fighting continues even as Russian, Turkish and Iranian leaders have agreed to multiple ceasefires to end the violence in Idlib Province. 

Inside Idlib: The Plight of Civilians in Syria’s Last Rebel Stronghold

Your world, reconsidered. This is VICE Investigates, a bold new documentary series from VICE News, only on Hulu. 

Anti-Vaxx Fever Vice Investigates 

India has been engulfed in riots after the world's biggest democracy suddenly stripped nearly two million people of their citizenship. As the nation's leaders ramp up Hindu nationalist rhetoric, a newly-enacted law has signaled to India's 200 million Muslims that they are the true target. This could mean that they end up in one of the brand-new detention camps quietly being constructed across the country. 

India Burning

Thousands of foreigners answered ISIS’s call to fight in Syria and Iraq, traveling from countries around the world...including the United States. VICE News follows the journey of an American father searching for his missing children in the hands of ISIS. The search reveals that while the physical Islamic State caliphate is gone, the ideology that attracted so many still lives on.

Taken by ISIS | One American Father’s Journey to Get His Kids Back from the Caliphate

Correspondent Isobel Yeung gains rare access inside Idlib, Syria's last rebel-held territory, as President Assad and his allies mount a brutal bombing offensive that has civilians paying the highest price.

Battle For Idlib

The circle of students sat quietly, scribbling down answers to the prompt they’d just been given: “Write down three similarities between the Holocaust and abortion.”

After a minute or two, they launched into discussion. Innocent people were, and are, being killed, they said. The Nazis discriminated against the Jews, just as “the unborn” face discrimination today. Bystanders aren’t doing enough to stand up against injustice.

Sarah Ruiz, the Texas A&M University senior leading the group, added another idea. Sometimes, she said, people who support abortion rights will say they wouldn’t get an abortion but they don’t want to stop anyone else from getting one.

“You can draw parallels ... to slavery, to child abuse, to animal cruelty,” she told her students, as other clusters of students debated the same topic nearby. “‘Well, I wouldn't kill my neighbor. But what you do is up to you. I wouldn't beat my child. But what you do is up to you. I don't like slavery, don’t own a slave.’

“You can plug in literally anything into that.”

As Ruiz spoke, her voice soft and solemn, her pupils nodded along, their faces determined. This was, after all, very serious business: If they could convince someone that abortion in the United States is a holocaust, they might be able to keep them from getting one — and save a life.

Welcome to pro-life boot camp.