Skye Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald grew up in rural Monument, Oregon, without electricity or running water.⁠[1]

He studied at Eastern Oregon University and received an MFA in theater arts from the University of Oregon in 1997, later taught high school in Gervais, Oregon, and in 2005 founded Spin Film, a Portland media company focused on human rights and social justice.⁠[2]

He has long documented global human rights and social justice issues and has shot for Dateline NBCNBCNBC (National Broadcasting Company) is an American national commercial broadcast television network. It was founded by RCA in 1926, began as a radio network and later developed television. With ABC and CBS it is one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks; it passed to General Electric with RCA in 1986, merged with Universal to form NBCUniversal in 2004, has been controlled by Comcast since 2011, and is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry, CNNCNNCNN (Cable News Network) is an Atlanta-based news organization founded by Ted Turner on June 1, 1980, as the world’s first 24-hour television news channel. It has been owned in turn by Turner Broadcasting System, Time Warner, AT&T and Warner Bros. Discovery, became part of Skydance Corporation along with Warner Bros. Discovery in October 2026, and is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry, the History Channel, the Travel Channel and ABCABCABC (American Broadcasting Company) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It grew out of NBC’s Blue radio network, took its name after becoming independent in 1943, developed into a national television network after merging with United Paramount Theatres in 1953, was acquired by Capital Cities in 1985, and has been owned by The Walt Disney Company since 1996. With CBS and NBC it is one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks, and it is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry.⁠[3]

His documentary Bombhunters, which he produced and shot, follows impoverished Cambodian villagers who search for and dismantle unexploded ordnance to sell as scrap metal, with the crew spending six months in remote rural areas; a radio review aired on December 12, 2007, recommended it to all US students, voters and policymakers.⁠[4]

In 2009 he and Patti Duncan directed the 68-minute documentary Finding Face, about Cambodian karaoke video star Tat Marina’s experience after an acid attack in 1999 and her quest for justice.⁠[5]

He recalls that orthopedic surgeon Hisham Bismar talked with him about the Syrian conflict and later decided to volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society on the Syria–Turkey border; he and his team filmed the whole process, completing 50 Feet from Syria in 2015.⁠[1]

The film follows Bismar treating the wounded at a Turkish hospital on the Syrian border, and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted it onto the 10-film shortlist in the Documentary Shorts category.⁠[6]

The 40-minute Lifeboat was part of the 2019 Oscar-nominated documentary shorts program; the film sails with the German volunteer rescue group Sea-Watch, following a mission that rescued about 3,200 people over three days.⁠[7]

He filmed in Tunisia and aboard a Sea-Watch vessel; he recalls that on the second day they faced about 3,000 people adrift with a crew of 16 on a 30-meter boat. He said one of his goals is “to make the unwatchable watchable.”⁠[8]

He worked with producer Bryn Mooser, and the crew on the water was just two people; he described Lifeboat as the second in a trilogy of short films on the global refugee crisis.⁠[9]

Lifeboat was also nominated as Best Short of 2018 by the International Documentary Association and won a social justice award at the Crested Butte Film Festival.⁠[10]

In March 2021 Hunger Ward was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, his second nomination. The film follows Dr. Aida Alsadeeq and nurse Mekkia Mahdi as they treat malnourished children in Yemen; it was picked up by MTV Documentary Films and premiered on Pluto TV.⁠[11]

He said the team took eight and a half months to obtain Yemeni visas, which allowed a two-person crew to stay 30 days accompanied by a government minder; they filmed at a refugee camp in the north and a hospital in the south.⁠[12]

He said that of all the difficult subjects he has tackled, Hunger Ward was the hardest to bear witness to; he calls the three films his “refugee trilogy.”⁠[13]

Through the film he raised more than $240,000 for the clinic it depicts, and it was screened at the Peace Palace in The Hague.⁠[2]

He appeared on episode 278 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing world hunger, Hunger Ward, authoritarianism, documentary storytelling, filming and editing, Lifeboat, 50 Feet from Syria, and film funding and distribution.⁠[14]

His project Speed of Rust premiered at Mountainfilm in 2024; he is also a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.⁠[3]

In the 97th Academy Awards short film shortlists announced on December 17, 2024, his Chasing Roo was shortlisted for Best Documentary Short.⁠[15]

Chasing Roo portrays Australia’s legally sanctioned kangaroo harvesting industry, which the film’s synopsis calls the largest commercial killing of land-based wildlife in the world each year, and asks whether one can feel empathy for both the hunted and the hunter.⁠[16]

The film takes the point of view of professional kangaroo hunters, set in tension with wildlife rescue experts who have devoted their lives to saving the animals.⁠[17]

X: Public account: https://x.com/spin_film (opens in a new window)⁠[14]