Léo Hamelin

Léo Hamelin is a filmmaker and director who works both in the United States and internationally. Until recently, she was the Head of Documentaries at Brut. America, where she led a small team in creating impactful, character-driven documentaries across the U.S. Léo's work seeks to foster empathy through intimate, first-person narratives. She has produced 30 short documentaries on topics including addiction, death, immigration, subcultures, and the environment, reaching millions of viewers worldwide.

She served as a bilingual Producer on a sports docuseries set to be released on Netflix in the fall of 2024. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, BBC, TIME, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Vox, and more.

Previously, she worked with Blue Chalk Media, where she directed the New Yorker documentary "Quiet No More," which received the National Magazine Award and premiered at DOC NYC. She also directed the New Yorker documentary "The People's Newspaper," which received a Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting Grant. Additionally, she produced non-fiction videos and campaigns for clients such as Pearson, Freedom House, Lyft, Nike, Morgan Stanley Sustainable Solutions Collaborative, Bloomberg Philanthropies, PepsiCo Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, and more.

As a recipient of the 2018 Adelante Fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF), she reported from the U.S.-Mexico border. Her work was published by the BBC and the Tampa Bay Times. Her illustrated essay about life at the border was published by BuzzFeed News. In 2017, she was awarded a European Journalism Centre grant for Innovation in Development Reporting to cover gender equality in Rwanda.

Léo was born into a French family and grew up in Brazil and Thailand. She studied in France, Mexico, and Hong Kong, and has traveled to over 45 countries.

She regularly teaches online documentary courses at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where she earned a Master's Degree in 2012 and served as a Digital Media Fellow in 2013. Prior to that, she earned a B.A. in Politics ('09) and a Master's Degree in Journalism ('11) from Sciences-Po Paris.