Justin Schein

Justin Schein has been shooting and directing character-driven social issue documentaries for more than 30 years.

 

His most recent film as a director is Death & Taxes (2024), a feature documentary about wealth, inequality, and the American Dream, viewed through the lens of the estate tax. It is also the very personal story of the filmmaker and his father at odds over what kind of inheritance we should leave our kids and our country.

 

In 2016 Justin directed Left On Purpose (with Laura Gabbert) which tells the story of his friendship with an aging anti-war activist who has decided that his last political act will be to take his own life. It has won numerous awards at festivals world wide. His directorial debut No Impact Man premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and documents a man and his family as they struggle to spend a year having no net impact on the environment while living in the heart of New York City.

As a cinematographer, Justin has shot on over 60 films internationally for broadcasters including HBO, National Geographic, The BBC and PBS. His filming has brought him around the globe documenting a great diversity of human experiences from the White House to the streets of Iraq. In 2020 he served as lead cinematographer on Crip Camp (directed by Nicole Newnham and Jim Lebrecht) which won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to be nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar.

Justin received his Masters Degree in documentary film from Stanford University and went on to found Shadowbox Films with David Mehlman in 1998. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, filmmaker Eden Wurmfeld, and their two sons.