Ilse Fernandez
Ilse Fernandez (2021) is a Colombian-born U.S. immigrant documentary filmmaker and docu-series showrunner. She has produced and directed over 200 hours of nonfiction and long-form documentaries for ABC, NBC, Vice, MTV, Netflix, Discovery, A&E, National Geographic and The History Channel. Ilse began tackling pressing social issues via documentary as a director and story producer on five seasons of A&E’s “Intervention” series, including the 2009 Emmy Award-winning season. Her “Rachel” episode, about a homeless New Yorker suffering from drug addiction, was nominated for both an Emmy and Producers Guild Award. As a showrunner on Viceland’s cutting-edge eight-part documentary series “Cyberwar,” she explored geopolitical-digital conflicts, from NSA whistleblowers to Anonymous hackers. On Spotify’s “Music Happens Here” documentary series, she served as both director and showrunner; the series won three Clio awards. She is a 2019 SFFilm/Catapult Documentary fellow, 2020 WIF Mentorship fellow, and a 2019 LPB Current Issues Fund and 2020 LPB Public Media Content Fund grant recipient. Ilse holds a B.A. from Concordia University in Montreal and attended the EICTV documentary filmmaking program in Cuba. Her short film “Sueños Luminosos” screened at Sundance 2000.
As a Logan fellow, Ilse will work on her first documentary feature, “Exodus Stories,” which follows the stories of three Central American immigrants seeking U.S. asylum.