THE DOCUMENTARY SPECIALIZATION

The students selected for this prestigious program are trained to be independent film producers and directors. Under the guidance of Professors June Cross and Robe Imbriano and a distinguished group of long-form storytellers, including Raney Aronson-Rath, ’95 M.S., the program’s first Editor-at-Large, they undertake courses in journalism production, visual storytelling, camerawork, editing; and receive one-on-one coaching from a faculty advisor. Students also learn the business side of documentaries — negotiating partnerships, rights and clearances, and how to develop a winning production trailer. Their Master's project, the capstone of their studies at Columbia Journalism School, is a short documentary expected to be of professional quality.

THE 2025 ADVISORS

JUAN MEJIA BOTERO

Juan Mejia Botero is an award-winning film director with over 25 years of experience in feature documentaries. He has worked extensively in Latin America, The United States and the Caribbean, where he has directed and produced a number of films and documentary series on forced displacement, ethnic autonomy, race and racism, immigration, policing and incarceration, state violence, and the competition for natural resources.

For television, Juan has produced a number of episodes for Netflix’s Amend: The Fight for America, ABC’s Soul of a Nation and Hulu’s Killing County. Juan directed the environmental true-crime thriller Death by a Thousand Cuts (Audience Award DOC NYC, Grand Jury Prize Seattle International Film Festival). His sports documentary Houston United premiered at the Tribeca International Film Festival in 2023. His latest feature, IGUALADA, about Colombia’s current Vice President, Francia Márquez, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024 and aired on POV in 2025.

PAMELA HOGAN

An Emmy award-winning filmmaker and media executive, Pamela Hogan’s new feature documentary The Day Iceland Stood Still, about the 1975 feminist uprising that sparked a revolution, was called “a worldwide cri de coeur” by the Globe and Mail, Canada’s newspaper of record. After premiering at Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival, the film has screened at numerous festivals around the world, winning audience awards at the Mill Valley and Thessaloniki Film Festivals, the Documentary Prize at Germany’s Nordische Filmtage Lübeck, Special Mention for Best Film on Politics at the Czech Republic’s Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, and other honors. Her independent film Looks Like Laury, Sounds Like Laury was hailed as one of “The Best TV Shows of 2015” by The New York Times. She was co-creator and executive producer of the PBS series Women, War & Peace - the first to consider war, conflict and peacemaking from the point of view of women as combatants, casualties and peacemakers - and directed the kickoff episode, I Came to Testify, about the courageous Bosnian women who broke history’s great silence and testified about their wartime rape and sexual enslavement, winning a landmark victory. Seen by 12 million viewers, the films won 2 Overseas Press Club awards and a Television Academy Honor for using television to promote social change. As executive producer of PBS’s global series Wide Angle, working with filmmakers on 70+ hours of character-driven stories, she originated and shaped development of the Emmy-winning Ladies First, about women’s leadership in post-genocide Rwanda. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.

ERIC JOHNSON

Eric Johnson has served as the Executive Producer for Original Series at CNN since September 2021. Prior to this role, Eric held various positions at ABC News from February 2007 to October 2021, including Executive Producer for Soul of a Nation, Director of Podcast Programming, and Senior Broadcast Producer for Good Morning America and Nightline. Eric's early career at ABC News involved roles such as Senior Producer and Newswriter for Nightline. Educationally, Eric earned a Master of Science in Journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from The College of New Jersey.

ALMUDENA TORAL

Almudena Toral is a journalist and filmmaker currently heading film and video at ProPublica as its executive producer. Previously, she built and led the enterprise video team at Univision News Digital, taught masters’ level classes at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, freelanced worldwide and worked at The New York Times and TIME.

The Night Doctrine, an animated film she co-directed about an American-backed program that killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, screened worldwide and won three Emmys in 2024. She was an executive producer for Raoul Peck’s Amazon’s feature documentary Silver Dollar Road, based on a ProPublica story by Lizzie Presser. A short documentary Toral directed, filmed and co-edited called The legacy of the zero tolerance policy, about children's PTSD after Trump’s border separations, was named World Press Photo Online Video of the Year in 2019.

Toral's work has been recognized by multiple News & Documentary Emmys, Edward R. Murrow awards, Webbys and prizes from Pictures of the Year International, RFK Human Rights Journalism, the National Press Photographers Association Best of Photojournalism, and others. She's a TED fellow, an Ochberg fellow and a Carter Center fellow.

HEMAL TRIVEDI

Hemal Trivedi (India/U.S.) has been editing and directing films for 20 years. Her entire body of work has won one Oscar, three Emmys, one Peabody and seven Emmy nominations, a nomination for MTV Movie Awards, nominations for Independent Spirits Awards and Cinema Eye Award. Netflix, HBO, PBS (Frontline and Independent Lens), YouTube Red, Showtime, BBC, Topic and Channel 4 have broadcast her work. Her films have screened in prestigious festivals like Sundance, TIFF, Tribeca, IDFA, CPH-DOX, Telluride, Woodstock, DOC-NYC, IFFI Goa, Berlin Film Festival. She is a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy.  Her notable work is Among the Believers, Battleground, Philly DA, Watergate, Gigi Gorgeous: This is Everything.