| Alysa Nahmias | |
| Birth Date: | Tucson, Arizona, U.S. |
| Style: | Documentary film |
| Years Active: | 2011-present |
Alysa Nahmias is an American filmmaker and the founder of Ajna Films.[1] [2]
Nahmias is originally from Tucson, Arizona. She holds degrees from The Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University and Princeton University.[3] She is married to graphic designer Rob Carmichael of SEEN Studio
In 2011, Nahmias directed and produced the feature documentary Unfinished Spaces, about the Cuban National Art Schools, with Benjamin Murray. The film won an Independent Spirit Award in 2012 and is part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection.[4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Nahmias directed and produced the 2019 documentary The New Bauhaus chronicling the art and design icon, László Moholy-Nagy.[9] The film features Moholy-Nagy's daughter, Hattula, and contemporary art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist reads Moholy-Nagy's words on screen.
Nahmias directed and produced the 2021 film Art & Krimes by Krimes, which centers on visual artist Jesse Krimes as he navigates his life and artistic career following incarceration. Art & Krimes by Krimes also features the stories and artwork of artists Russell Craig, Gilberto Rivera, and Jared Owens. The film was purchased for distribution by MTV Documentary Films
Her producing credits include Unrest, by director Jennifer Brea, which won the Special Jury Award for Best Editing at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival,[10] No Light and No Land Anywhere, by director Amber Sealey with creative advisor Miranda July; Shield and Spear, by director Petter Ringbom; What We Left Unfinished, by director Mariam Ghani; and Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq by director Nancy Buirski with creative advisor Martin Scorsese.[11] In 2020 Alysa executive produced Weed & Wine, directed by Rebecca Richman Cohen which premiered at Hot Docs, Deauville, and DOC NYC film festivals in 2020.[12] [13] Nahmias served as executive producer for I Didn’t See You There directed by Reid Davenport, which won the 2022 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary Directing Award.[14]
Nahmias has been featured in Filmmaker Magazine as an independent film innovator.[15] She is a 2019 Sundance Institute Momentum Fellow and a 2020 Film Independent Fellow.[16] [17] Nahmias co-authored a Sundance Creative Distribution Case Study on Unrest and has written about documentary grant writing for MovieMaker Magazine[18]
Nahmias is a co-founder of FWD-Doc, a non-profit organization which supports disabled filmmakers and entertainment industry workers. Other co-founders include Jim LeBrecht, Day Al-Mohamed and Lindsey Dryden.
| Film | Year | Role | Subject Matter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfinished Spaces | 2011 | Director | The National Art Schools of Cuba and the Cuban Revolution | |
| 2013 | Producer | Ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq, wife of George Ballanchine | ||
| Shield and Spear | 2014 | Producer | Art, music, and censorship in contemporary South Africa | |
| No Light and No Land Anywhere | 2016 | Producer | A foreigner seeks connections in a city of strangers | |
| Unrest | 2017 | Producer | Director Jennifer Brea turns the camera on herself to capture her struggles with chronic fatigue syndrome | |
| What We Left Unfinished | 2019 | Executive Producer | Mariam Ghani tells the story of five unfinished fiction feature films from the Communist era in Afghanistan (1978-1991), and the people who went to crazy lengths to make them, in a time when films were weapons, filmmakers became targets, and the dreams of constantly shifting political regimes merged with the stories told onscreen. | |
| The New Bauhaus | 2019 | Director and Producer | The life, ideas and impact of Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy. | |
| Weed & Wine | 2020 | Executive Producer | Continents apart from one another, two farming families aim to reinvent themselves on their land. | |
| Art & Krimes by Krimes | 2021 | Director and Producer | Visual artist Jesse Krimes navigates his life and career following a six-year prison sentence.[19] | |
| I Didn't See You There | 2022 | Executive Producer | Filmed entirely from director Reid Davenport's perspective as a wheelchair-bound citizen of Oakland California, documenting the realities of navigating the world with a disability. | |
| Wildcat | 2022 | Producer | A young British soldier struggling with depression and PTSD fosters an orphaned baby ocelot with an American scientist. |