ABOUT
Kira Akerman is an award winning documentary filmmaker, educator, and educational consultant. Her debut feature documentary Hollow Tree, won a Jury Prize at its premiere at the New Orleans Film Festival, and an award for Best Documentary at Chicago’s International Children’s Festival. Hollow Tree has been supported by International Documentary Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Sundance Institute, among others.
Kira was selected for the 2019 PBS Wyncote Fellowship, 2019 Sundance Talent Forum Fellowship, the 2020 Gotham Documentary Lab, and the 2021 Climate Story Lab. Kira’s peer reviewed essay, Filmmaking as a Classroom: A Documentary Practice for the Climate Crisis, appeared in Southern Cultures.
Previously, Kira’s short “Station 15” (PBS) screened on a Smithsonian exhibit across Louisiana, The Climate Museum, DocNYC, Imagine Science Film Fest, Sheffield Doc Fest, as well as in classes at Tulane University, Harvard University, LSU, and others. “Station 15” protagonist, Chasity Hunter, spoke about what she learned through the filmmaking process at New Orleans’ City Council, The UN Global Climate Summit, and NPR. Kira’s other short films have been featured in “The Atlantic,” The Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University, the Ford Foundation Gallery, the Camden International Film Festival, MOMA, DocNYC, the Rotterdam Film Festival, and Clermont-Ferrand. H-E-L-L-O was first exhibited at The New Orleans Contemporary Art Center and later travelled to MASS MOCA for Cauleen Smith’s exhibit, WE ALREADY HAVE WHAT WE NEED. Kira was a participant in the Anthropocene River Campus (via the Max Plank Institute), a gathering designed to open up exploratory epistemological practices in a time of climate crisis.
CONSULTING & TEACHING
Kira consults on place-based learning and nonfiction media for Ripple Effect, a water literacy educational nonprofit, and Tulane University’s Center for the Gulf South, an interdisciplinary, place-based institute that promotes the understanding of New Orleans and the Gulf South region. She teaches workshops on documentary filmmaking, and the intersection of science and storytelling, such as LSU’s Science Communications Summit.
Contact: kiraperry8@gmail.com