Johanna Hamilton recently completed Discreet Airlift, a short film focusing on residents of a town in North Carolina seeking answers about the role their state played in the U.S. torture program. Commissioned by Field of Vision, it aired on the online news publication The Intercept. Wrong Man, a series about wrongful convictions, co-directed with Joe Berlinger, aired on Starz earlier this year. Hamilton contributed to Parched, a National Geographic Channel limited series about the politics of water and executive produced by Alex Gibney. Her episode was recently nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Investigative Documentary category. Prior to that, she directed and produced Sundance-supported 1971, a feature documentary about a group of citizens that broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. The break-in revealed the existence of COINTELPRO, a massive illegal surveillance operation. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, won the IDA’s ABC News VideoSource award and Cinema Eye’s Spotlight Award and was nominated for an Emmy after airing on PBS’ Independent Lens. Before that she partnered with Gini Reticker and Abigail Disney to co-produce Pray the Devil Back to Hell, the account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-old civil war. It won Best Documentary at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. The film is broadly credited with helping lead figure, Leymah Gbowee, win the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. With The Trial, she has partnered again with Field of Vision.
