Alexander Spiess
Alexander Spiess is an independent filmmaker and journalist with experience directing, producing, shooting and editing short and feature length documentary, series, narrative film and branded content. His area of focus is investigative documentaries surrounding global conflict, human rights, culture and politics.
His clients include, CNN: Fareed Zakaria, National Geographic, NBC Peacock, Channel 4, A+E Networks / Six West Media, Blinx Shahid, Birchbox, TSMC, Showtime, Lionsgate, History Channel, Goldcrest Films, Gravitas Ventures & Saboteur Media.
As a journalist, He’s covered the January 6th Capitol Riot, the opioid epidemic, US Mexico Border, and most recently ISIS’s impact on the Yazidi community in Kurdistan.
His most recent film, Mediha, Executive Produced by Emma Thompson, premiered at Doc NYC in 2023 where it won the Grand Jury Award in US Competition, and earned runner-up for the Audience Award. Since it's premiere Mediha has won 7 Grand Jury awards and also premiered at Big Sky Film Festival, CPH DOX, Human Rights Watch, Thessaloniki, and Movies That Matter, where it earned The Activist Award.
He also produced Higher Love, which won the Grand Jury Award for best documentary feature at Slamdance Film Festival 2020, and named one of the Best Documentaries of 2020 by No Film School. Higher Love is distributed by Gravitas Ventures, and available on all platforms November 3, 2020.
Prior to Higher Love, Alexander was an associate producer to Nick Quested and Sebastian Junger for the award winning National Geographic Documentaries Hell On Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS (Tribeca 2017), and earned an Alfred I. du-Pont Columbia University Award for Excellence in Journalism and Investigative Reporting in 2018. And Blood On The Wall, a broad investigative documentary about Mexico and it’s war on drugs and migration, which premiered at AFI Doc Fest in June 2020, and had its broadcast premiere on September 3, 2020 for National Geographic. Currently streaming on Hulu.
In 2020 Alexander finished production on Season 2 of History Channels’ investigative doc series, Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation.
Prior to his work in film, Alex studied journalism and political science at Marist College while fulfilling an NCAA Division I athletic scholarship for football. As an undergraduate he wrote for USA Today, The Poughkeepsie Journal, and Motif Magazine, and served as President of The Society of Professional Journalists Marist College Chapter, from 2013-2015, with the chapter earning Northeast Campus Chapter of the year in 2014.
Alex guest lectures a workshop on editing for the film department at Montclair State University, and currently lives in Bend, OR. When he's not working he's probably in the outdoors with his son Heron.