DOC NYC’s annual 40 Under 40 list spotlights young creatives that are making an impact on the field of documentary. DOC NYC is proud to honor the accomplishments of these exceptional artists, and excited to highlight for our industry and audiences powerful work and diverse voices that are worthy of close attention.
Now in its seventh year, the 40 Under 40 list is composed of eligible emerging documentary talent from filmmakers based in the U.S., Canada, and/or Mexico. In addition to directors, the list encompasses talent working in producing, editing, cinematography, composing, and other creative roles. The 2024 cohort will be honored during the 15th annual edition of DOC NYC in November at a private cocktail reception.
DOC NYC Class of 2024 “40 Under 40” honorees:
Nesa Azimi
Nesa is a director, producer, and editor living in New York City. She started at The Maysles Documentary Center and has been on staff for Rain Media, PBS Frontline, Fault Lines, Al Jazeera, National Geographic, and the Ciné Institute. She has been a fellow with Sundance, NYFA, Firelight, and Points North. Driver, which premiered at Tribeca, is her first feature.
Paige Bethmann
Paige Bethmann is a Haudenosaunee director and producer. Her credits include Candace Parker: Unapologetic and Native America: Women Rule. Her forthcoming feature film and directorial debut Remaining Native has been supported by IDA, Points North Institute, Sundance Edit and Story Lab, Perspective Fund, and Doc Society. Paige is a 4th World Media Lab Fellow and BAVC MediaMaker Fellow.
Sofia Bohdanowicz
Sofia Bohdanowicz is an award-winning Toronto filmmaker. Her films have been showcased at BFI, NYFF, Viennale, Berlinale, Locarno, The Harvard Film Archive, and TIFF. Named one of the 22 Most Influential People in Canadian Film, her latest film, Measures for a Funeral, will premiere in TIFF’s Centrepiece program. Her work is available on the Criterion Channel.
Michael Crommett
Michael is an Emmy and PGA Award-nominated filmmaker and cinematographer. When at NYU, he developed a love for documentaries. This led to filming January 6 for Unprecedented, storm chasing for Photographer, and over 1,200 interviews for Humans of New York: The Series. With roughly 40 documentary cinematography credits and counting, Michael will make his directorial debut in 2026.
Samantha Curley
Samantha Curley is an award-winning documentary producer and creative entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. She is the Co-Founder of Level Ground, a collaboratively-led artist collective and production company. The first two films she produced, Framing Agnes (2022) and Union (2024), both premiered at Sundance. She graduated from Northwestern and is a 2023 Impact Partners Fellow and Cali Catalyst grant recipient.
Jordan Dykstra
Jordan Dykstra is a Brooklyn-based performer and BMI Award-winning composer. His film scores have been heard at numerous film festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, Rotterdam, Tribeca, TIFF, DOC NYC, and CPH:DOX, amongst others. Dykstra scored the Oscar and BAFTA-winning film 20 Days in Mariupol, which the Wall Street Journal said was “aided greatly by an eerie, tonal score by Dykstra.”
John Fisher
John S. Fisher is a Colombian-American documentary editor whose work includes the Academy Award-shortlisted and Emmy-nominated film Stamped From the Beginning (Netflix), directed by Roger Ross Williams; the Academy Award-shortlisted and Emmy Award-winning documentary The Apollo (HBO); the documentary series The Supermodels (Apple TV+); and the Peabody Award-winning series High on the Hog (Netflix).
Sarah Garrahan
Sarah Garrahan is a documentary editor from San Antonio, Texas. Recent credits: The Infiltrators (Sundance 2019), Building the American Dream (SXSW 2019), Silent Beauty (Hot Docs 2022), La Isla (The New Yorker). She is a former Flaherty Fellow, Felsman Fellow, and Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellow. In 2023, she was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film.
Contessa Gayles
Contessa Gayles is a film director, writer, DP, editor, and Emmy-nominated producer. She tells stories about identity, socio-political movement, healing, Black liberation, and the radical imagination. Her films include the documentary-visual album Songs from the Hole (SXSW Audience Award, 2024); The Debutantes (Tribeca Festival, 2024); The Feminist on Cellblock Y (CNN, 2018); and Founder Girls (BET, 2023).
Jimmy Goldblum
Jimmy Goldblum is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, who’s directed some of the world’s most visually ambitious and emotionally resonant documentary series. His film A Broken House was Oscar-shortlisted, Emmy-nominated, and the IDA Award-winner for “Best Short.” His forthcoming feature documentary Yosi is produced by Protozoa Pictures and Discordia. His first feature Tomorrow We Disappear premiered at Tribeca and Hot Docs.
J.M. Harper
J.M. Harper’s directorial debut is As We Speak (Sundance 2024), a documentary about rap lyrics on trial (Paramount+). A multi-hyphenate documentarian, he edited the Emmy-nominated Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (Netflix, Sundance 2022); Down a Dark Stairwell (PBS, Criterion Channel); and Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma (New York Times OpDocs), which won Jury Awards at Sundance and SXSW in 2021.
Jessica Harrop
Jessica Harrop is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has dedicated her career to inspiring passion about science through film. She is the Executive Director of Sandbox Films, where she has worked as a creative executive producer on films including Fire of Love; Nocturnes; All Light, Everywhere; and Fathom. She has a degree in Ecology from Princeton.
Hannes Hosp
Hannes Hosp’s editing work focuses on social justice, government accountability, and human rights. Recent editing credits include Gumbo Coalition (HBO Max, IDFA), directed by Barbara Kopple; America and the Taliban (Peabody Award for Public Service); and The Crown Prince (duPont-Columbia Award finalist). Outside the editing room, Hannes also produces, works as a cinematographer, and is directing his first feature-length documentary.
Cassandra Jabola
Cassandra is a Filipina-American producer with a journalism background. Her films have screened at Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW, among others. She’s collaborated with HBO, NatGeo, NBCUniversal, TLC, A&E, ID, and Science and Travel Channels. She recently produced Invisible Nation (CPH:DOX, IDFA) and Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir (PBS, Netflix), and was showrunner for You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment (Netflix).
Jess Jacklin
Jess Jacklin is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker known for her impactful storytelling. Her debut film, Quad Gods, premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival and was distributed by HBO/Max. She also created the acclaimed docuseries Hacking Health and directed the PBS short Waterman. Jess’s work explores themes of resilience and innovation, establishing her as a leading voice in documentary filmmaking.
Kiana Jackson
Kiana Jackson is an award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted producer with projects on Netflix, HBO, and Hulu. She believes that film does not give a voice to people but has the capacity to amplify and center their stories in the way they want them to be told. Recent projects: Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games, The Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show.
Kreshnik Jonuzi
Kreshnik is an Albanian/American filmmaker who is based in New York City. He began his filmmaking career at NFL Films, where he worked on numerous sports documentaries that aired on HBO & ESPN. He has directed and produced three feature documentaries that have screened at festivals around the world, including Thessaloniki, Warsaw, Dokufest, Nordisk Panorama, and Reyjkjavik Film Festival.
Jalena Keane-Lee
Jalena Keane-Lee is a filmmaker who explores intergenerational trauma and healing. She was named a 2023 Adobe x Sundance Woman to Watch and co-founded Breaktide, an all-women-of-color video production company that has won two Cannes Lion awards for branded content. Jalena’s first feature-length documentary Standing Above the Clouds premiered at Hot Docs in 2024 and won Best Social Impact Documentary.
Asher Levinthal
Asher Levinthal is a nonfiction filmmaker and former public defender. His directorial debut, Shaken, premiered at DOC NYC and is being expanded into a series. Since, he’s produced and directed projects on cowgirls, satanists, and body farms. Asher co-produced Realm of Satan (Sundance Film Festival 2024) and is currently producing Christopher LaMarca’s Justus and Chase Joynt’s Untitled Michael Project.
Li Lu
Li was born in Suzhou, China and raised in Sugar Land, TX. As a director, her award-winning narrative feature/TV and documentary work can be streamed on Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix. A Town Called Victoria, a docuseries about an arson of a Texas mosque, premiered on PBS in November 2023. She strives to create bold, fearless projects across genre and form.
Mahrya MacIntire
Mahrya MacIntire is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker. Her work explores topics related to community (re)building and trauma healing from an embodied perspective. Producer credits include An American Bombing (2024), The Slow Hustle (2021), and Baltimore Rising (2017), all for HBO. She is currently in production on her feature directorial debut.
Katie Mathews
Katie Mathews is a filmmaker working across documentary and fiction. Her collaborative approach is focused on creating spaces for truth and transformation. Recent projects include feature documentary Roleplay (SXSW 2024) and narrative short Dark Moon (Vimeo Staff Pick 2022). She is a Princess Grace Award winner, and her work can be found on Teen Vogue, WIRED, PBS, Hulu, and Disney+.
Will Miller
Will N. Miller is a Sundance, Emmy, and Peabody Award-winning producer and editor. His work focuses on environmental conflict, migration, and human rights. His films include Squid Fleet (Visions du Réel 2023), The Territory (Sundance 2022), Nuisance Bear (TIFF 2021), and Unsafe Passage (Guardian Documentaries), among others. He runs the production company Documist with his best friends.
JoeBill Muñoz
JoeBill Muñoz is a Mexican-American filmmaker and the director of The Strike (Independent Lens, 2025). His independent films have been supported by Sundance, Firelight, New America, and others. As a producer, his work includes The Grab (Hulu), Kids Caught in the Crackdown (Frontline), The New York Times Presents (Hulu), and more. Originally from Texas, he resides in New York City.
Sophia Nahli Allison
A self-proclaimed black lesbian myth, Sophia Nahli Allison is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, self-portrait photographer, and artist. She explores themes of identity, flight, and memory to document the space between reality and dreams. She is a 2020 USA Fellowship awardee in film and has been an artist-in-residence at Black Rock Senegal, MacDowell, and The Camargo Foundation, among others.
Sierra Neal
Sierra Neal is an Emmy-nominated editor known for Carlos, Guns N’ Roses: Live in New York, and Jim Henson Idea Man, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Raised in Long Island, NY, she is currently based in Los Angeles.
Netsanet Negussie
Netsanet is an award-winning documentary film producer. Her work covers a diversity of topics from extremism and the criminal justice system to pop culture and sports. Her work is featured on Netflix, HBO, PBS, MAX, Hulu, Disney+, ABC, and Mother Jones. She is a 2024 Rockwood Documentary Leaders Fellow and was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany.
Hunter Nolan
John “Hunter” Nolan (Unearth, The Game Changers, Paper & Glue, Before The Flood, TIME: Guns in America) is an award-winning documentary film cinematographer and director specializing in impact filmmaking. Active as a filmmaker in addressing environmental conservation, endangered species protections, and humanitarian systems, Hunter sees film as a powerful catalyst for raising awareness and driving progress in today’s day and age.
Zoe Potkin
Zoe Potkin is an independent producer with a passion for telling powerful stories about women. Potkin was recently Supervising Producer on the documentary Take Care of Maya, which was nominated for two Emmys and released on Netflix on their Global Top 10 chart. Potkin is currently in post-production on a feature documentary she is producing for Story Syndicate.
Natalie Rae
Natalie Rae is a filmmaker from Vancouver, Canada. Making her first feature documentary over an eight-year journey, she debuted Daughters at the Sundance Film Festival, where she won the Audience Award and Festival Favorite. Daughters was picked up by Netflix and will be released in August 2024.
Michael Rowley
Michael Rowley is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been characterized as defiant, visceral, and deeply human. Depicting stories from The West Bank (Hurdle, 2019), the Halls of Congress and tent revivals (Praying for Armageddon, 2023), and alongside a terminally ill motorcycle racer (Racing Mister Fahrenheit, 2024), his films have been broadcast internationally by BBC, ARTE, Sundance Now, and Al Jazeera.
Scott Alexander Ruderman
Scott is a director and cinematographer. His film Pay or Die, about the insulin affordability crisis, premiered at SXSW 2023, was acquired by MTV Documentary Films, and streams on Paramount+. It won a SIMA award and a Cinema for Peace Dove on Global Health. His work features on Netflix, HBO/MAX, Hulu, BBC, and PBS, and has premiered at festivals globally.
Pamela Ryan
Midwestern native Pamela Ryan is a producer of documentaries, podcasts, and scripted films, including Ramin Bahrani’s If Dreams Were Lightning, Nira Burstein’s Charm Circle, Discovery ID podcast series Mafia Tapes, Boaz Yakin’s Boarding School, and Margaret Brown’s Emmy-nominated, SXSW Grand Jury prize-winning The Great Invisible. Pamela is an Impact Partners Documentary Producing Fellow and an Oscar shortlist nominee.
Francesca Sharper
Francesca Sharper (she/her) is an emerging Brooklyn-based editor. After starting her career in ads and reality TV, she has spent the last six years focusing on documentary storytelling. Her credits include the 2021 Peabody winner High on the Hog, the 2022 SXSW Grand Jury winner Master of Light, and the 2024 Emmy-nominated film Stamped From the Beginning.
Miranda Sherman
Miranda Sherman is a producer at OBB Media who builds strong coalitions around compelling characters with incredible stories to create films that transcend and impact that endures. She has most recently produced Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, directed by Lucy Walker and acquired by Netflix, and Child Star, directed by Demi Lovato and Nicola Marsh for Hulu.
Grace Sin
Grace Sin is a filmmaker committed to championing underrepresented voices. She has produced nonfiction content for major networks including HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. Upcoming independently produced projects include BRIC TV comedy web series Problematic; ITVS-funded web series The Grocery List, and several fiction and nonfiction projects helmed by womxn and filmmakers of color in development through her production company PARADOXIC.
Maya Tippett
Maya Tippett is an Emmy-winning editor currently living in upstate New York. Her work has screened at Sundance, SXSW, DOC NYC, Hot Docs, Full Frame, and more. Her most recent film Eno, a groundbreaking generative documentary about visionary musician and artist Brian Eno, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
Mars Verrone
Mars Verrone is a filmmaker, musician, and educator from Los Angeles, CA. Their first feature as producer, Union (dir. Stephen Maing & Brett Story), premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and won a special jury prize. They are a Sundance Producers Fellow, NBC Original Voices Artist Mentor and Fellow, Producers Guild of America Fellow, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia Fellow.
Jane M. Wagner
Jane M. Wagner is a documentary filmmaker whose work explores technology’s effects on our emotional lives. Her debut feature Break the Game (POV) premiered at Tribeca 2023 (Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Director). Jane’s work has been supported by Sundance Institute, Film Independent, and IDA. She’s currently developing her second feature *Holds You Tight.*
Rosie Walunas
Rosie Walunas is a documentary editor whose passion for documentary sprouted as a teenager in the mid-2000s. Her most recent work on the four-part series The Sing Sing Chronicles will make its world premiere at a major film festival in fall 2024 and will broadcast on MSNBC in 2025. Additional work includes: Bad Axe, AKA Jane Roe, Meltdown in Dixie.