Alysa Nahmias is an American filmmaker and the founder of Ajna Films.[1][2]
Life
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[citation needed]
Career
In 2011, Nahmias directed and produced the feature documentary Unfinished Spaces, about the Cuban National Art Schools, with Benjamin Murray.[4] The film won an Independent Spirit Award in 2012 and is part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection.[5][6][7][8][9]
Nahmias directed and produced the 2019 documentary The New Bauhaus[10] chronicling the art and design icon, László Moholy-Nagy.[11] 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.[12]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[8]
Her producing credits include Unrest, by director Jennifer Brea, which won the Special Jury Award for Best Editing at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival,[13]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.[14] 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.[15][16] 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.[17]
Nahmias has been featured in Filmmaker Magazine as an independent film innovator.[18] She is a 2019 Sundance Institute Momentum Fellow and a 2020 Film Independent Fellow.[19][20] Nahmias co-authored a Sundance Creative Distribution Case Study on Unrest and has written about documentary grant writing for MovieMaker Magazine[21]
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.[6]
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.[22]
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.[5]
