Her mother is a literature professor emeritus at Purchase College and edited Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing (1999).
[4] The film, an examination of Illinois governor George Ryan's decision to commute the death sentences of everyone awaiting execution in the state, was purchased and broadcast on Dateline NBC, a rare example of a major commercial network acquiring an independent documentary.
[citation needed] She co-directed with Ross Kauffman the feature-length documentary E-Team, which won Best Cinematography at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival[9] and was released as a Netflix Original in October 2014.
[6] She directed one of six segments of Hard Earned, which aired on Al Jazeera America in 2015 and won an Alfred I. duPont Award.
[13] Two films she co-produced have been nominated for an Emmy, in 2020 Becoming and in 2021 Dick Johnson Is Dead,[14] which also won the Special Jury Award for Innovation in Nonfiction Storytelling at Sundance in 2020.