Documentary Profile Series

Everyone has a story, even those to which we would never give a second thought. This series of short documentary profiles represents an attempt to look intimately at people we walk by, or who might peak our curiosity but whom we would never engage in dialogue, or whom we see regularly and might call a familiar stranger.

Who is Nathaniel Hansen?

Nathaniel James Hansen is an award-winning filmmaker and media artist. His directed works include nationally broadcast commercials, short and feature-length documentaries and fictional narrative films, episodic television, web-based media, and ethnographic film. His background in theater, cultural studies and anthropology informs his creative work, often pushing him to take on and examine difficult sociocultural, ethical and moral issues.

His strong documentary visual style has attracted commercial fortune 500 clients like Johnson & Johnson, Covidien, and the Estée Lauder family of companies, as well as high profile non-profit organizations such as the UN Partnership Forum, The Joseph Campbell Foundation and Wayuu Taya Foundation. His 2010 documentary series, Profiles, offered poignant insights into the lives of familiar strangers from his daily commute, with the series has been described as “existential gold.” The series received praise online and at festivals in New York City, Seoul, Melbourne, and Barcelona. A recent commissioned short film, about Boston’s Chinatown, was screened at the White House in May 2010 and Nathaniel’s ethnographic film footage from New Caledonia has been retained by the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.

He recently wrapped production as the Director, Cinematographer, and Editor for a documentary film series co-sponsored by the UN, Qualcomm, and the Joseph Campbell Foundation. He profiled 36 people from all over the world in a 6.5-week production that took him to dozens of cities in five countries on four continents. In September 2011, six of the films were screened at the Phillips de Pury gallery in New York City.

His latest documentary film project, The Elders, is a feature-length documentary that uses stylized interview portraits of elderly individuals to tell a universal story about life's most important lessons. Thematically organized around life lessons that reflect a wide range of human emotion and experience, the film seeks to reveal a larger more complex portrait of our shared humanity.

Nathaniel's recent independent work has been supported entirely through social media and crowdfunding, where a lot of people donate a little money. In 2010, his innovative film fundraising efforts raised over $340,000 for films in which he is directing, producing, or consulting.

Nathaniel holds a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Arts in Media Art from Emerson College, a Bachelor of Arts in International Cultural Studies and an Associate of Arts in Theater from BYU-Hawaii. He is the owner of a small production company, Salmonrun Media, and is an adjunct professor of media art at Emerson College and at Boston University. Nathaniel resides in Boston with his wife Felicity Salmon (Music ‘00) and their two children, Asher and Tovah.

Read more at my about page