Justin Schein

Justin Schein has been shooting and directing character-driven social issue documentaries for more than 25 years.

As a cinematographer, he has shot on over 60 films internationally for broadcasters including HBO, National Geographic, The BBC, The Discovery Channel 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.

His most recent film Left On Purpose (2016) 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 and is scheduled to be distributed in early 2017.

Prior to that, his film No Impact Man premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and has screened throughout the world. It 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.

Presently, Justin is shooting and directing several documentary projects including  “Quality of Life" (working title), which looks at palliative care- a revolutionary way of looking at illness and pain that will forever change the way healthcare is provided.  He is also revisiting his award winning doc from 1993 Down on Polk Street, a gritty verité documentary filmed in San Francisco with a group of homeless youth, and is now going back to find these subjects in order to see the trajectory of their lives. Justin also serves as a cinematographer for Apple's Meet the Filmmaker series.

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.