Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nevo Shinaar. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Nevo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

After earning my MFA from Northwestern, I was fortunate to land a position guiding youth media literacy programs with Free Spirit Media in Chicago while also independently producing documentary shorts on the side. Two of those shorts – “Stay Close” and “Dia de la Madre” – premiered successfully at Sundance in 2019 and 2020. That initial exposure helped lead to my current position as Head of Development for Mitten Media, overseeing the development slate for both scripted and non-fiction projects. My pathway has navigated from hands-on community arts education to independently creating award-winning films to now strategizing a dynamic production company’s project pipeline – and I carry lessons from each stage that guide me in elevating new and diverse voices through media.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Nevo, and I am an award-winning creative producer of both scripted and non-fiction films focused on character-driven stories and innovative approaches to storytelling. Over the past several years, I’ve helped shepherd multiple documentaries and independent narratives from development through distribution.

My recent producer credits include By Water, which premiered at the 2022 Blackstar Film Festival and would later go on to play at the Sundance Film Festival and SFFILM, among others, La Bonga, which premiered at both the True/False and Directors Fortnight at MOMA in 2023, as well as Demon Mineral, which played numerous festivals worldwide and recently was awarded the Documentary Audience Award at Slamdance. Other past standout documentaries I’ve worked on as producer have earned Oscar shortlisting (Stay Close), an Oscar nomination (White Eye), and distribution from outlets including HBOMax, Disney+, and POV.

Currently based in Chicago, I also lead the documentary arm of Mitten Media; a production company which specializes in premium documentaries like Abacus: Too Small to Jail and a Compassionate Spy and am part of two collectives – SITE and Wolf + Me Films.

My strength as a producer is fostering collaborative relationships between filmmaker and subject to excavate resonance in even the most marginalized stories. I’m fueled by a passion for cinema’s power to reveal shared truths of our human condition.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I’m driven by a mission to harness the power of culture to build understanding across divides; I believe visual storytelling fosters humanizing connections that erode barriers.

Much of my documentary work elevates communities and people experiencing oppression while revealing shared struggles that unite our human family. I help craft empathetic films that spotlight resilience and hope; my goal is utilizing media to catalyze recognition of our intrinsic interconnectedness.

I’m also eager to explore emerging interactive technologies enabling collaborative storytelling. As virtual worlds expand participatory possibility, my aim is to innovate inclusion through new forms that activate viewer agency. By bridging physical and digital realms, I want to manifest a spirit of co-creation and cooperation.

At its heart, my ambition is filmmaking as radical listening – bearing witness to each other’s stories to build bridges. By elevating empowering counternarratives, I envision media that brings people meaningfully together across lines of politics, culture and identity.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Before becoming a documentary producer, I was fortunate enough to live and volunteer in Nepal for several years. During my time there, a devastating earthquake hit the country in 2015, and I was in-charged with supporting relief efforts on the ground. That experience, alongside the unparalleled resilience of the Nepalese people, taught me something about my adaptability and ability to respond to adversity as well.

In a very different capacity, I’ve learned to use this adaptability in order to respond to the ever-changing needs and market conditions of the media landscape; with an industry that is in a process of reforming itself, I have to be able to respond quickly to the various needs of the projects I work on, and the creatives I work with, in order to see us to the finish line.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nevoshinaar.com
• Mitten Media: https://www.mittengroup.com/