Jeff Zimbalist

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Jeffrey Leib Nettler Zimbalist (born August 15, 1978 in Northampton, Massachusetts) is an Emmy nominated, American documentary filmmaker. Together with Matt Mochary, Zimbalist won the Best Emerging Filmmaker Award at the 2005 TriBeCa Film Festival for his work on Favela Rising. The film follows the life of Anderson Sa through the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in his attempt to use AfroReggae music to provide a positive outlet for the residents of a dangerous environment. The film was distributed by Thinkfilm and HBO Documentary Films in North America and the Institute of Contemporary Art in the UK. Favela Rising also garnered a 2006 Emmy Nomination for Zimbalist and Mochary, was named as the 2005 International Documentary Association's Film of the Year, was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2005, and won 36 International Film Festival Awards, including Best Documentary at Sydney and Leeds International Film Festivals.

Jeff is a director, cinematographer and editor whose work has been broadcast on HBO, PBS, Channel 4, Sundance Channel, BET, BBC, and WE television. Jeff's films have been featured at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Massachusetts, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston and the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. He has produced educational and promotional films for over a dozen clients throughout the United States, in South Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as provided media consulting services to the UNDP and various international nonprofit service organizations. Jeff teaches at the New York Film Academy and the Maine Photographic Workshops. He is a Massachusetts State Cultural Council Fellow and a 2006 Ford Foundation Grantee.

Jeff is the son of prominent sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, and is often credited as having given his father the idea to investigate sports from an academic perspective.