Nina Alvarez

Journalist, Documentarian, & Video Photographer

Nina Alvarez is a journalist, documentarian, video photographer and educator. She is the director of Almost American (PBS 2024), a feature documentary that follows one family’s five-year fight to stay together.Their lawsuit against the government exposes the tactics of Trump political appointees to end the Temporary Protected Status of 400,000 people. Nina’s directing credits include Fields of Promise (PBS World Channel), The New Americans (PBS Latino Americans series), Very Young Girls (Showtime), Critical Condition (Univision), Battle for America’s schools (MSNBC). Her work has been recognized by several awards including the Alfred I. duPont Columbia Journalism Award, Cine Golden Eagle, Emmy Award, Imagen Award.

From 2015 to 2017, Nina was also the Senior Producer on the Fusion/Netflix investigative series, The Naked Truth, which was recognized with the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Alfred I. duPont Columbia Journalism Award, an Emmy nomination and the Al Neuharth Award for Innovation in Investigative Journalism.

Nina began her career at ABC News in 1993 working in news and documentary. Since 2018, she has been a full-time faculty member of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Participating Sessions

DOCUMENTING THE DOCUMENTERS

There is a rich tradition in narrative cinema of laying bare the mechanisms of filmmaking itself, from Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ to Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain. Yet, reflexivity looks a bit different in investigative cinema. A number of new, masterful documentaries have pulled the cover off the investigative process, while being great works of journalistic investigation unto themselves. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s debut feature, Writing With Fire,...