SABRINA SCHMIDT GORDON
Producer | Director | Editor

Sabrina Schmidt Gordon is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and impact strategist from New York City. Since her Emmy-winning editing debut, she has emerged as a leading voice in documentary film as a producer, editor, director, and field-builder. A Women at Sundance Fellow, she is also a recipient of the Dear Producer Award, recognizing excellence in independent filmmaking, the Reel Sisters Trailblazer Award, joining previous honorees Issa Rae, Jessica Williams and Julie Dash, and in 2017, Sabrina was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Through her production company, Vespertine Films, Sabrina’s work employs provocative, nuanced storytelling that centers marginalized voices, illuminates diverse experiences, and pushes creative boundaries while exploring urgent social issues. She has produced numerous critically acclaimed films, including her current film SEEDS—winner of the 2025 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and shortlisted for the 2026 Best Documentary Academy Award. Other Sundance titles include:

QUEST (2017), an intimate portrait of a North Philadelphia family, from the 2008 election of Barack Obama through to the 2016 nomination of Donald Trump. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, in 2017, receiving critical acclaim and awards on the festival circuit and beyond. It is a New York Times Critics Pick, a Rolling Stone Top 10, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, a Peabody Award, and two Emmys. In an interview with VOGUE magazine, Sabrina discusses authorship, collaboration, and authentic storytelling in Quest, a Documentary Disrupts American Narratives About Race.

Victim/Suspect (2023), an Emmy winning Netflix investigative documentary about police handling of sexual assault cases, that premiered in January at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Produced with the Center for Investigative Reporting, it was in the US competition for Best Documentary.

To the End (2022), which follows four young women of color, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on the front lines of the fight to end the climate crisis.

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (2006), her first feature, which she produced and edited, exploring masculine identity in America through Hip-Hop.

Sabrina’s directing debut was the Emmy-nominated BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez (2016), which she co-directed, co-produced, and edited, winning the Best Film Directed by a Woman of Color award at the African Diaspora International Film Festival in 2016. She is also the co-producer and editor of Documented (2013), the story of Pulitzer Prize-winning undocumented journalist, Jose Antonio Vargas. The film had record viewership on CNN, and was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Best Documentary Film.

Sabrina produced and edited Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter (2009), the gripping story of an undocumented young mother’s fight for asylum to protect her baby daughter from ritual genital cutting. It toured with the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and was screened at a congressional hearing on women and asylum in partnership with the Tahirih Justice Center. Sabrina’s television credits include America by the Numbers, the acclaimed PBS series hosted by Maria Hinojosa. Her episode, The New Mad Men which she edited, won the prestigious Imagen Award, which recognizes Latin voices and nuanced portrayals in the entertainment industry.
Other credits include Sundance winner CUSP; Belly of the Beast; Cooked; The New Black; and Wilhemina’s War.

Sabrina also produces, directs and edits content for many video journalism platforms and organizations. Among these are The New York Times, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, Frontline, American Masters, The Ford Foundation, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Witness, Agricultural Missions, the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights, and more. She also produces and consults on engagement and impact campaigns for documentary films and other media projects. Sabrina is a faculty member at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a sought after panelist and juror. She is Chair of the Black Documentary Collective and a founding member of Beyond Inclusion, advocating for equity in the independent film industry. Sabrina is an honors graduate from New York University, as a Chemistry-turned-Philosophy & Literature major.