Stanley Nelson is a renowned documentary filmmaker, recognized for crafting feature-length films that seamlessly weave engaging narratives with meticulous historical research, thereby shedding new light on both well-known and lesser-explored aspects of the American past.
Throughout his illustrious career, Nelson has received numerous prestigious honors, both for his individual films and for his body of work as a whole. He has been recognized as a MacArthur "Genius" Fellow, and has been awarded an individual Peabody Award, the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts Sciences, and the National Medal in the Humanities, presented by President Barack Obama.
Nelson's most recent film, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, a definitive exploration of the life and career of the legendary Miles Davis, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019. This marked Nelson's tenth premiere at the esteemed festival within a twenty-year period, a testament to his enduring influence within the documentary filmmaking community.
In 2018, Nelson directed a short film that delved into the history and far-reaching consequences of racial profiling in public spaces. The Story of Access was showcased at a mandatory training session for 175,000 Starbucks employees across 8,000 stores, and garnered over a million views on.
