Ben Makinen

Ben Makinen is an American filmmaker, music producer, composer, and drummer best known for the award-winning films JazzTown and Who Killed Jazz (2022).

Biography Ben Makinen was born in Maine and grew up in California, Washington, Oklahoma, and Colorado. Living in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1982, he was cast as an extra in Francis Ford Coppola’s movie The Outsiders. Makinen's family moved to Aurora, Colorado the following year where he attended high school.

Makinen founded the International Modern Film Alliance (IMFA) in 2020 during the COVID-19 outbreak to provide resources and instruction to amateur filmmakers. Makinen leads IMFA workshops for children and young adults in Bali, Indonesia.

His first feature-length documentary film, JazzTown, has won fifteen awards as of February 2022.