I picked up a movie camera for the first time when I was 14, the old family Super-8 that introduced me to a whole new world of communication and storytelling. Filmmaking remained a hobby until my best friend and frequent journalism collaborator, Chris Hondros, was killed covering the conflict in Libya in 2011. His life and his stunning work as a photojournalist demanded a visual telling, leading to my directorial debut with the documentary HONDROS (Netflix, Amazon Video, and most streaming services). Since then, I’ve directed and produced numerous nonfiction films for outlets like NatGeo, the New York Times, The Guardian, Vocativ and others. Scroll below for samples and details.
HONDROS
The feature-length documentary about the life and career of award-winning photojournalist Chris Hondros had its World Premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival and its International Premiere at the 2017 Hot Docs Festival in Toronto.
The film won Tribeca's Audience Award for Documentaries and I was honored with a special jury mention for Best New Documentary Director.
For more information about this project, click here.
Chain of Command — Episode 8, “Why We Fight”
I was field producer embedded with US Special Forces in Niger four weeks before the men we filmed were ambushed on a patrol near the Malian border. Four were killed (three of whom where featured in the episode), making this project one of the more meaningful and profound I’ve ever been involved in.
Surviving an ISIS Massacre
The improbable story of Ali Hussein Kadhim, the only known survivor of an ISIS massacre of an estimated 1,300 people in 2014. My production team and I met Ali in northern Iraq and partnered with The New York Times to tell his story. This project was a finalist for a news Emmy and winner of a Digiday award for Best Use of Video.