GOOD TALK WITH ALYSA NAHMIAS

Alysa Nahmias is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of the Los Angeles-based production company Ajna Films. Alysa has been producing and directing documentaries for over fifteen years since embarking on her debut feature Unfinished Spaces, co-directed with Benjamin Murray, which won a 2012 Independent Spirit Award, the Society of Architectural Historians Film and Video Award, numerous festival prizes, was broadcast on Netflix and PBS, and is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Alysa's recent directing credits also include THE NEW BAUHAUS (2019) and the forthcoming documentary Krimes. As a creative producer, Alysa produced the Emmy-nominated and Academy Award-shortlisted Unrest (2017) directed by Jennifer Brea, which won a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was distributed on Netflix and PBS. Her producing credits also include the Los Angeles Film Festival award-winning scripted feature No Light and No Land Anywhere (2016) by director Amber Sealey with executive producer Miranda July; What We Left Unfinished directed by Mariam Ghani which premiered at the Berlinale and SFFILM (2019); Weed & Wine (2020) directed by Rebecca Richman Cohen; and Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq directed by Nancy Buirski with creative advisor Martin Scorsese (2013). As a consulting producer, Nahmias frequently advises on films such as Academy Award-nominated director Jennifer Redfearn's Tocando La Luz (2015), Hao Wu's People's Republic of Desire, and Abby Epstein and Ricki Lake’s Weed the People (2018). Alysa’s work has been shown at festivals and exhibitions worldwide, including Sundance, Berlinale, SXSW, CPH:DOX, Film Society of Lincoln Center, and has been released theatrically in the US and UK, exhibited at MoMA and the Venice Biennale, and broadcast on Netflix, PBS, and HBO. Alysa is a 2020 Film Independent Fellow, a 2019 Sundance Momentum Fellow, a Sundance Catalyst Forum advisor, and a co-author of the groundbreaking Sundance Creative Distribution Case Study on Unrest. She co-founded FWD-Doc as an ally who is committed to advocating for disability rights and inclusion, and she is a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Alysa holds a B.A. from New York University Gallatin School and a Masters degree from Princeton University.