Film Work

the american southwest // documentary // producer & cinematographer (2025)

The American Southwest is a thrilling wildlife movie that chronicles life and death along the Colorado River...and advocates for its return.

The feature-length film follows the Colorado River from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains, through lush forests and iconic canyons, and down diversion tunnels and irrigation canals on its 1,400-mile journey to sustain both the natural world and humanity. Along the way, the river nourishes diverse ecosystems that are bursting with life, and provides water to more than 40 million people. From the recovery of elk and beavers to the endangerment of cutthroat trout and jaguars, the movie showcases wildlife stories that speak to our society’s ability to both destroy and recover the natural world.

Narrated by Quannah ChasingHorse, The American Southwest is set to be the first-ever blue chip natural history film narrated by an Indigenous voice. Through collaboration with Natives Outdoors, the film also features incredible artwork, architecture, and culture of Indigenous peoples who have lived in relative harmony with the region for over one thousand generations.

With a changing climate, rapidly growing population, and continuous over-allocation of the world’s most litigated river, there has never been a more important time to inspire conservation efforts that ensure wildlife, rivers, and humans thrive. The American Southwest aims to foster a love for the region, ignite hope for conservation success, encourage action to return healthy river flows, and raise awareness before the Colorado River Compact is renegotiated in 2026.

landscape: running dry // outsideTV // host & producer (2024)

The 6 part, Landscape: Running Dry follows a human-powered journey through the Colorado River Basin—from the dry delta near Mexicali, Mexico, to the snowy headwaters of Colorado’s Front Range. Through gravel biking, paddling, and backcountry travel, the series explores the interconnected challenges facing one of North America’s most vital watersheds.

Along the way, it centers the voices of people who live along the river, sharing firsthand accounts of how the water crisis is reshaping communities, cultures, and ecosystems. By grounding the story in physical movement across the land, the series offers a visceral and intimate lens on the realities of drought, overuse, and climate change in the American West.

wild and scenic gila river // documentary // director & cinematorgrapher (2024)

NativesOutdoors, in collaboration with Nuestra Tierra, the Conservation Alliance, Flickr, and a broad coalition of conservation partners, produced a short film with Congressman Gabe Vasquez to support the campaign to protect the Gila River—one of the last free-flowing rivers in the American Southwest. The film documents Vasquez’s introduction of legislation to designate the Gila as a Wild and Scenic River, while spotlighting the diverse community of advocates working to safeguard its ecosystems and cultural significance. Through advocacy and storytelling, this project builds momentum for permanent protection in the face of growing threats from water diversion and climate change.

these hands: a story of vernan kee // smart wool & weston backcountry // co-director, producer, photographer (2022)

We teamed up with Smartwool, Weston Backcountry, and the National Forest Foundation to create a collection of winter gear that gives back. The exclusive ski sock was designed in collaboration with Natives Outdoor member and Diné Navajo artist, Vernan Kee.

Vernan focuses on his surroundings and upbringing in his work—often honoring cultural elements such as traditional weaving and the four sacred mountains. For this collection, Vernan knew it was a natural fit to feature art inspired by one of the fastest and most respected birds in Navajo culture, the red-tailed hawk.

get out the vote arizona // rural utah project // director & producer (2020)

At the end of 2019, when the Rural Utah Project began to expand its programs into the Arizona portion of the Navajo Nation through the Rural Arizona Program, we knew that we needed a different approach. Instead of investing in a conventional digital advertising program, we chose instead to invest in individuals and content creators who were already organizing within their own communities, in their own voices. In a unique collaboration between the Rural Utah Project and NativesOutdoors, we set out to do just that

the c-team: beer league mountain biking on the colorado trail // fat tire // talent & drone op (2020)

The C-Team is a mountain bike film celebrating Fat Tire's 30th Anniversary. Inspired by the fabled mountain bike ride through Europe that spawned the craft beer icon, we assembled a ragtag crew to ride more than 500 miles down legendary Colorado Trail, from Denver to Durango, stopping in the mountain towns nestled along the route, in search of cold beer and good times.

welcome to gwichyaa zhee // director & producer (2019)

Just north of the Arctic Circle, the Gwich’in people are fighting to protect the lands and caribou from oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—a place that has provided them with a rich and bountiful existence since time immemorial. Indigenous groups in southeastern Utah are doing much the same, seeking to defend their homeland and cultural heritage from energy and mining exploitation in Bears Ears National Monument. "Welcome to Gwichyaa Zhee" is a short film that explores the commonalities and differences between the two, and why the Gwich’in people need our support.

episode 17: mt tukuvinivatz // the fifty project & cody townsend // talent (2019)

Mountains are a skier's passion, but for many people in North America, they're far more than that. They're a source of life, death, spirits, ancestry and most important, it's their home. Joining with Len Necefer PHD, Diné (Navajo), the CEO of Native Outdoors and a professor of Native American Studies along with Connor Ryan, Húŋkpapȟa (Lakota), Townsend goes into the La Sal Mountains, the ancestral homelands of the; Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), Diné (Navajo), and ancestral Puebloan peoples, to ski as well as talk and learn about their individual connections with the mountains and how important they are not to just skiers, but to the world.

The FIFTY is a project following Cody Townsend as he attempts to climb and ski all fifty of the lines and mountains chronicled in the book, "The 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America."

messengers: a running story about bears ears and grand staircase escalante // talent (2018)

On December 4, 2017, President Trump declared a drastic reduction of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments. This is the largest elimination of protected land in American history…and the President had made his decision without ever stepping foot there. 

On January 13, 2018, we gathered a group of friends and ran 250 miles across both monuments in a single weekend to see for ourselves what would be left protected.

Now more than ever we believe in celebrating the things that unite us. Our run was about finding commonalities in the midst of a divisive political landscape and standing in coalescence— tribal members, athletes, dirtbags — for our public lands. We hope our footsteps carry a message: wild places are worth protecting, and sometimes the first step in doing that is to take another.