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310-279-7507
DEREKLINDENKNOWLES@GMAIL.COM

Derek Knowles is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer whose work often explores the intersection of people and planet.  His films have been supported by the Tribeca Film Institute, Kartemquin Films, the Berkeley Film Foundation, and California Humanities, featured as multiple Vimeo Staff picks and on Short of the Week, and have appeared on The New Yorker, The Atlantic, PBS, Frontline, and Aeon, as well as festivals around the world.

As a cinematographer, he combines a formal rigor and verité instincts with a character- and narrative-driven focus, moving between the documentary, journalistic, environmental, and branded content spaces. Recently, he served as the lead cinematographer on PBS’ four-part primetime series, Citizen Nation (2024), and was the Director of Photography on the Academy Award-shortlisted Between Earth and Sky (POV, 2023), an If/Then grantee that explores the spiritual reawakening of renowned rainforest ecologist, Nalini Nardkani.. He also contributed additional cinematography on another Oscar-shortlisted project, Planetwalker (LA Times, 2024), is a contributor to The New York Times Video and Opinion departments, and shot for network series like Showtime’s The Circus, Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines, and Vice’s Planet A.

His latest films have explored the relationships between humans and the natural world, most recently with Sentinels, an immersion into the world of tree-sitting and direct action environmentalism, which is featured as part of The Los Angeles Times Short Documentary series after screening at Academy Award-qualifying festivals like Big Sky, Indy Shorts, and LA Shorts, as well as The Bird Rescue Center, a portrait of a native bird sanctuary that screened at Mill Valley and the DC Environmental film festivals, amongst others. Last Days at Paradise High, which premiered on The New Yorker in August 2020 and  After the Fire, winner of the Tribeca Film Institute's If/Then Shorts Award and featured on Ryot Films and throughout California PBS stations, explored the human fallout of massive wildfires in intimate, character-driven studies. 

Derek also runs a production company, Linden Tree Films, out of his Bay Area base, which takes on commissioned projects and visual media for a variety of clients across the environmental, non-profit, tech, and music sectors. Past clients include The Latino Community Foundation, 

In 2018, he was an Artist-in-Residence at “thecamp” in the south of France, where he created an interactive media project aimed at connecting young and older generations, and in 2021 was selected for a residency at PLAYA in southern Oregon. He also recently served as a cinematographer for Al Jazeera’s Emmy award-winning series, Fault Lines, and Vice’s Planet A, as well as on episodes of Showtime’s The Circus. He was also the Director of Photography for the acclaimed PBS/POV short film Between Earth & Sky (2023), an Academy Award-shortlisted selection that looks back at the life of renowned rainforest ecologist, Nalini Nadkarni, as she confronts echoes of trauma across three generations of her family, five years after surviving a life-changing fall from a tree.

Derek graduated from Stanford University in 2011. Today, he is based in Santa Rosa, California and works up and down the western United States. He is a proud member of the Milo Baker chapter of the California Native Plant Society, where he collaborates with neighbors to install native habitat gardens throughout the city, and a founding member of Santa Rosa Re-leaf, dedicated to promoting urban tree canopy.