The Art of Nonfiction with Chai Vasarhelyi (FREE SOLO), Steve James (AMERICA TO ME), and Steve Maing (CRIME + PUNISHMENT)

Award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is the director and producer of FREE SOLO, from National Geographic Documentary Films. Co-directed with Jimmy Chin, the film offers an intimate, unflinching portrait of rock climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares for and then achieves his lifelong dream: to climb the face of the world’s most famous rock … without a rope. Vasarhelyi’s 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), which premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals; “A Normal Life” (Tribeca Film Festival, Best Documentary 2003); and “Touba” (SXSW, Special Jury Prize Best Cinematography 2013). Vasarhelyi has directed a New York Times Op Doc, an episode for Netflix’s nonfiction design series “Abstract” and two episodes for ESPN’s new 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 lives in New York City.

Steve James previous work includes Hoop Dreams, winner of every major critics prize and a Directors Guild of America Award, a Peabody and Robert F. Kennedy Award. Other award winning films include Sundance winner, Stevie; International Documentary Association winning miniseries The New Americans; The Interrupters, which won an Emmy, Independent Spirit Award, and the DuPont Columbia Journalism Award; and the Emmy-winning Life Itself, named the best documentary of 2014 by over a dozen critics associations, including The Critic’s Choice Awards, The National Board of Review, and The Producers Guild of America. His most recent film, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, earned James a fourth Directors Guild of America nomination, won a Critics Choice Award and an Emmy, and was nominated for an Academy Award, James' second. His Starz docuseries, America to Me premiered at Sundance and is one of the most acclaimed TV shows of 2018. 

Tabitha Jackson assumed the role of Sundance Film Festival Director in February of 2020. Serving as the Director of the Documentary Film Program at Sundance Institute since 2013, she and her team encouraged the diverse exchange of ideas by artists with a mission to champion the power of artful cinema in the culture and to support a more expansive set of makers and forms. In 2019 she launched and led a new pillar of work at the Institute – Impact, Engagement and Advocacy – with the goal of reasserting the role of the independent artist as a dynamic force for social good.

Prior to joining Sundance she served as Head of Arts and Performance at Channel 4 Television in London, where she supported the independent and alternative voice and sought to find fresh and innovative ways of storytelling, including executive producing Mark Cousins’ cinematic odyssey The Story of Film. She is an award-winning Commissioning Editor, director, producer and writer who believes passionately in the arts as a public good.

Stephen Maing is a filmmaker based in New York City. His feature documentary Crime + Punishment, which he directed, filmed and edited over four years, won a Special Jury Award at Sundance, an Emmy Award and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His previous films, High Tech, Low Life, directed, filmed and edited over five years, and The Surrender, were released on POV and Field of Vision, respectively. His upcoming film The Great Experiment is an ambitious cinematic time capsule of one of the most volatile and perplexing eras of American history & identity. He is a 2021 United States Artists Fellow and recipient of the International Documentary Association's Courage Under Fire Award. He is a member of the Academy, a frequent visiting artist and lives in Ridgewood, Queens with his partner and young daughter.