ABOUT
Swiftwater is a documentary production company telling stories about the natural world. Our feature-length and short films have focused on water, river conservation, salmon recovery and environmental justice in the American West. We were founded after winning the RFP to produce the feature-length film following the removal of four dams on Northern California and Southern Oregon's Klamath River, a project launched in 2020 and currently in production. Since that time our team has filmed with tribes, scientists, fishermen and conservationists throughout the Pacific Northwest, Northern California and Alaska to tell stories highlighting how science and indigenous perspectives are reshaping land, water and resource management in the era of climate change. We have long-standing relationships with the communities we work with, and have partnerships with conservation organizations to help turn storytelling into policy change. Our team is specialized in verite cinematography, underwater filming, drone piloting and timelapse.
Shane Anderson
Principle Director and Producer
Shane is a documentary filmmaker with a background in fisheries biology, focusing on socio-environmental stories, natural history, ecology and salmon recovery. Since 2012, he has produced and directed seven feature documentaries including A Rivers Last Chance, Chehalis: A Watershed Moment, The Lost Salmon and Covenant Of The Salmon People. In addition he has produced many shorts including Guardians of the River (2021) which received the EarthX Impact Award, and his short Bring the Salmon Home (2022) was a Jackson Media Award finalist. Shane’s films have been supported by Redford Center, Rogovy Foundation and Patagonia, and his work has been featured on Netflix, PBS, BBC, Seeker, WaterBear, and Outside Magazine, and in dozens of impact campaigns and educational institutions. Shane’s passion for film began as a professional downhill skier before working in Hollywood and then carving out a niche of storytelling in the American West.
Maya Craig
Director of Photography/Producer
Maya Craig is a documentary filmmaker and freelance director of photography based in San Francisco and working internationally. She has been shooting with Swiftwater Films since 2020, across a number of projects including Guardians of the River, The Lost Salmon, Covenant, and Bring the Salmon Home, which was a finalist for the 2022 Jackson Media Awards. She has been a National Geographic Explorer since 2019, looking at the global climate and geopolitical impacts of a warming Arctic, a journey that has brought her to Alaska, Svalbard, Iceland, and across Europe to film with scientists, policymakers, and indigenous communities living and working at the forefront of climate change. Her resulting short documentary, filmed onboard icebreaker ship USCGC Healy, will be released Spring 2023. She is also a DP and producer on feature documentary Laikipia, about conservation and pastoralism in Northern Kenya, which has been supported by Threshold Foundation, Doc Society, Sundance, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Her first documentary Water Town, about a water privatization conflict in Northern California, was broadcast nationally on PBS and helped lead to the City of Weed, CA securing its water rights after a five year legal battle. Maya holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science and a Master’s in Documentary Film from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Jessie Sears
Assistant Director - Production Coordinator
Jessie is an enrolled Karuk tribal member and is in pursuit of connecting with her indigenous roots and giving back to the community. She is passionate about justice for the environment and is driven to evoke empathy and compassion for the earth through filmmaking. After earning her communications degree from Portland State University in 2016, Jessie has worked in the documentary medium as a camera operator, camera assistant, media manager, production coordinator, and assistant to the director/producer. She also has experience working on feature-length narratives, PSA’s, corporate and commercial work, and short films. While launching her filmmaking career, she also worked as a senior administrator for a healthcare company and traveled the world as a freelance videographer and photographer.
