USA

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker. Most recently Vasarhelyi Directed and Produced Free Solo, which offers an intimate, unflinching portrait of rock climber Alex Honnold. The film was awarded a BAFTA, the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and seven Emmy Awards. Vasarhelyi’s other films as a director include Meru (Oscars Shortlist 2016; Sundance Audience Award 2015), Incorruptible (Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award 2016); Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love (Oscilloscope, 2009), among other award winning films. Vasarhelyi has directed two New York Times OpDocs, two episodes of Netflix’s nonfiction design series Abstract and two episodes of ESPN’s nonfiction series Enhanced. She has received grants from the Sundance Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bertha Britdoc, the William and Mary Greve Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts. She is a member of the DGA as well as AMPAS. She holds a B.A. in comparative literature from Princeton University and splits her time between New York City and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with her husband Jimmy Chin, their daughter, Marina, and son, James.

Filmography

A Normal Life (2003)
Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love (2008)
Touba (2013)
Incorruptible (2015)
Meru (2015)
Free Solo (2018)