Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an Academy® Award-winning filmmaker with a storied history of critically acclaimed films, including “Free Solo”, which won the Academy® Award and a BAFTA in 2019 and “Nyad”, which saw both stars Annette Bening and Jodie Foster receive Academy Award nominations. Honoured with Emmy, Peabody, Independent Spirit, and various film festival awards, her recent filmography as director and producer includes “Love+War,” “Lost in the Jungle,” “The Rescue”, and "Everest: The Other Side”, which will be premiering this fall. 

Vasarhelyi’s other films as a director include INCORRUPTIBLE (Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award 2016); YOUSSOU N’DOUR: I BRING WHAT I LOVE (Oscilloscope, 2009), which premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals; A NORMAL LIFE (Tribeca Film Festival, Best Documentary 2003); and TOUBA (SXSW, Special Jury Prize Best Cinematography in 2013). 

She has received grants from the Sundance Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bertha Britdoc, and the National Endowment of the Arts. She is a member of the DGA, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science (AMPAS) and The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and holds a B.A. in comparative literature from Princeton University. Vasarhelyi lives in New York City with her children, daughter, Marina, and son, James.

The photograph of Chai Vasarhelyi was taken by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.