Nico Opper (they/them) is an Emmy®-nominated filmmaker who has been featured in Filmmaker Magazine’s annual “25 New Faces of Independent Film”, Indiewire Magazine’s “25 LGBT Filmmakers on the Rise”, and DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40” list of documentary talents.

Their directorial debut, Off and Running (Tribeca Film Festival Audience Favorite, POV broadcast), received ten Best Documentary awards, The WGA Award for Best Documentary Screenplay and a national Emmy nomination. Their episodic series The F Word was nominated for a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series and an IDA Award for Best Short Form Series.

They produced the ITVS feature documentary Try Harder! which premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and a Cinema Eye Honors Award, and is currently streaming on Hulu and Independent Lens. Opper is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a Eureka Fellowship, and serves as a Film Expert for the US State Department’s film diplomacy program, the American Film Showcase. In 2023, Opper was a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Award, which elevates women and gender-expansive directors who are poised to reach new heights in their creative trajectory and solidify their position as filmmaker-advocates for urgent issues.

Additionally, Opper directed and produced When I Write It with Shannon St. Aubin (Tribeca, Hot Docs, POV Shorts 2020) and directed and produced the feature Visitor’s Day (AFI Docs, Guadalajara Int’l Film Festival, PBS). Executive producing credits include Breaking the News (Tribeca 2023, Indepedent Lens) What You’ll Remember (2021 New York Times Op-Doc), and the forthcoming ITVS film, Flood.

Opper is an alum of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and an associate professor of filmmaking at Santa Clara University. They actively mentor emerging filmmakers, and have served as a mentor for the Sundance Producing Intensive and Sundance Ignite. They currently serve on the SFFILM Makers Creative Advisory Board for 2024-2025 SFFILM Residents. Opper lives in Oakland, CA with their wife, seven year old son, and a dog named Babs.