ABOUT CATALYST FILMS
Founded by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Kristi Jacobson, Catalyst Films produces non-fiction feature films, series and shorts. We produce powerful, cinematic and authentic content. We are committed to telling stories that treat societal issues with nuance, complexity and high production values.
Our work has screened in festivals and cinemas across the globe and broadcast on worldwide networks and streaming platforms. Our clients and partners include HBO, Max, Netflix, Paramount+, ITVS, PBS, Tribeca Enterprises, Procter & Gamble, Sesame Street and more.
KRISTI JACOBSON, Director/Producer/ Founder
Kristi Jacobson (she/her) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in New York. She founded Catalyst Films in 2006, after producing TOOTS, a feature documentary about legendary saloonkeeper, and her grandfather, Toots Shor. TOOTS premiered in 2007 to packed houses and critical praise and was selected as a critics’ pick by The New York Times, The New York Post and New York Magazine.
Her 2016 film, SOLITARY, takes audiences deep inside a supermax prison in Western Virginia. The film won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Documentary as well as a nomination for Independent Spirit’s Truer Than Fiction Award. In 2021, Jacobson directed HOMEFRONT, part of the HBO/Max and Sesame Workshop series THROUGH OUR EYES; THE PROTECTORS episode of DOGS, a Netflix Original and “I can’t change 400 years in four” (co-directed with Angela Tucker forMother Jones/PBS' Independent Lens).Other credits include the “Cartel Bank” episode of DIRTY MONEY (2018, Netflix); TAKE BACK THE HARBOR (2018, Discovery); and A PLACE AT THE TABLE (2012, Magnolia Films and Participant Media). Jacobson’s short form work includes the Procter & Gamble 2021Olympic Shorts Series “Good is Gold”, and “Momentum Shift” about OrangeTheory Fitness founder and owner Ellen Latham, winner of the Brand Films Directing Award.
Jacobson is the producer of AN ACT OF WORSHIP, Nausheen Dadabhoy’s directorial debut feature and part of the Award-winning POV Series on PBS; Elaine Sheldon’s RECOVERY BOYS for Netflix and THE FIRE THAT TOOK HER, winner of the 2023 Emmy for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary.
She is a member of the AMPAS, the Director’s Guild of America, and a two-time Sundance Creative Producing Fellow. Jacobson is represented for commercials and branded content by NY-based production agency C41 Media
MICHELLE R. CARNEY, Head of Strategy & Production
Michelle R. Carney (she/her) is an Emmy Award-winning producer, production executive and writer with experience creating documentaries, series, and multi-platform content. She was showrunner on the recent VICE docuseries RESET: The Unauthorized Guide to Video Games and produced the Emmy-winning film We Could Be King and the Emmy-nominated Keepers of the Game.
As the Vice President of Production for Tribeca Enterprises, she oversaw all aspects of creative production across Tribeca’s business units, including the Tribeca Film Festival and Tribeca Studios, the company’s original content group. A pioneer in the world of branded entertainment, Michelle has worked on both the agency and creative sides to produce award winning-films funded by companies including Kerri Walsh Jennings: Gold Within (Dick’s Sporting Goods), Momentum Shift (Orangetheory Fitness), The Resilient Heart (Mount Sinai), Destination: Team USA (United Airlines) and Olympic storytelling for Proctor & Gamble.
Originally trained as a broadcast journalist, Michelle produced MTV’s 2008 Choose or Lose Presidential campaign coverage, including live, interactive Town Halls across the country. She started her news career as a Morning Edition intern for WNYC and then on the overnight desk at KNBC in Los Angeles. Ask her about those jobs. They were wild.