Nels Bangerter
Editing
Biography
Nels Bangerter is an award-winning documentary film editor known for finding original and effective approaches to form and structure. His widely-acclaimed work includes CAMERAPERSON, the through-the-viewfinder memoir of documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson; 32 SOUNDS, a film and live-performance documentary exploration of sonic experience; LET THE FIRE BURN, an all-archival examination of the police bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia; DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD, a hybrid docu-comedy about loss and memory; THE HOTTEST AUGUST, an essayistic survey of New Yorkers coping with the uncertain future; and RIOTSVILLE, U.S.A., an archival interrogation of the state’s reaction to the uprisings of the late 1960s. Nels has won four International Documentary Association Awards and two Cinema Eye Awards for Outstanding Editing (with two additional nominations); and has been nominated twice for News and Documentary editing Emmys and once for an ACE Eddie. He was named a film craft “Influencer” by Indiewire magazine, and is a member the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Known For

Through deep examination, this documentary from Oscar nominee Petra Costa explores the profound impact of evangelism on Brazil's political landscape.
Apocalypse in the Tropics

Ben Stiller tells the story of his parents—comedy icons Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara—exploring their impact on popular culture and at home, where the lines between creativity, family, life, and art often blurred.
Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost

With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.
Dick Johnson Is Dead

Explores the elemental phenomenon of sound and its power to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us.
32 Sounds

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Cameraperson

Narrated by Rami Malek and Michelle Williams, and based on classified NSA documents, the film reveals the inner workings of a windowless skyscraper in downtown Manhattan.
Project X

Julie Wyman’s quest to find her place within the little people (LP) community at a moment when dwarf identity is poised to radically change. As Julie unpacks the rumors of “partial dwarfism” in her family she finds that hers is the last of a body type she has inherited. She joins forces with a group of dwarf artists to confront the legacy of being tokenized and put on display.
The Tallest Dwarf

A transgender Native Hawaiian teacher inspires a young girl to fulfill her destiny of leading the school's male hula troupe, even as she struggles to find love and a committed relationship in her own life.
Kumu Hina

An archival documentary about the U.S. military’s response to the political and racial injustices of the late 1960s: take a military base, build a mock inner-city set, cast soldiers to play rioters, burn the place down, and film it all.
Riotsville, USA
Hip-hop star Emmanuel Jal returns to Sudan where he served as a child soldier.
War Child

There may not be any secrets in a small town, but there is an expectation of silence. In A Town Called Oil City, the return of a native son to announce his same sex wedding and help a gay teen who is being tormented at school offers a chance to change the way things have always been done.
Out in the Silence

Set against the dramatic landscape of contemporary Afghanistan and the National sport of Buzkashi - a brutal game of horse polo played with a dead goat - Buzkashi Boys tells the coming of age story of two best friends, a charismatic street urchin and a defiant blacksmith's son, who struggle to realize their dreams as they make their way to manhood in one of the most war-torn countries on Earth. Shot on location in Kabul city by an alliance of Afghan and international film makers, Buzkashi Boys is a look at the life that continues beyond the headlines of war in Afghanistan.
Buzkashi Boys

ARCTIC SUMMER is a poetic meditation on Tuktoyaktuk, an Indigenous community in the Arctic. The film captures Tuk during one of the last summers before climate change forced Tuk's coastal population to relocate to more habitable land.
Arctic Summer

Eleven year old Ho'onani dreams of leading the hula troupe at her inner-city Honolulu school. The only trouble is that the group is just for boys. She's fortunate that her teacher understands first-hand what it's like to be 'in the middle' - the ancient Hawaiian tradition of embracing both male and female spirit. Together they set out to prove that what matters most is to be true to yourself.
A Place in the Middle

Mexico and the United States crack down on the trails north, forcing immigrants into more dangerous territory. Told against the backdrop of the North American migrant trail, 'Border South' weaves together migrant stories of resilience and survival from different vantage points. The film exposes a global migration system that renders human beings invisible in life as well as death.
Border South

Brett Story's visionary look at New York City as it braces for an uncertain future.
The Hottest August

Born with cystic fibrosis, 28 year old Ethan Rice faces his demise with a dark sense of humour and more concern about what his passing will mean to those he leaves behind than for himself.
Exit Music

Moving between the playful and the contemplative, explores the meaning of identity and home across three generations of an Iraqi family in Texas.
Jaddoland

Jason Osder delivers an account of the incidents leading up to and during the 1985 standoff between the extremist African-American organization MOVE and Philadelphia authorities. The dramatic clash would claim eleven lives and devastate an entire community.
Let the Fire Burn

In 2009, police discovered the bodies of eleven women decomposing in and around the home of known sex offender. With unprecedented access to the surviving victims, UNSEEN looks into how this killing spree went unnoticed for so long.