An exhilarating window into the world of a northern California bird rescue center and the people who give wildlife a second chance.
Biography:
Derek Knowles, a graduate from Stanford University in 2011, is a filmmaker and cinematographer working in creative non-fiction. His most recent films tackled the interactions between people and the natural world. Sentinels, which delves into the world of tree-sitting and direct action environmentalism, was shown at different festivals and it was included as part of The Los Angeles Times Short Documentary series. Last Days at Paradise High, which debuted on The New Yorker in August 2020 and After the Fire, winner of the Tribeca Film Institute's "If/Then" Shorts Award and featured on Ryot Films and throughout California PBS stations, explored the human fallout of massive wildfires in intimate, character-driven studies. He was chosen for a residency at PLAYA in southern Oregon after serving as an Artist-in-Residence at "thecamp" in the south of France where he developed an interactive media project meant to bridge the gap between younger and older generations. Recently, he worked as a cinematographer on episodes of Showtime's The Circus, Vice's Planet A, and Al Jazeera's Emmy-winning Fault Lines. For the highly acclaimed PBS/POV short film Between Earth & Sky he also served as director of photography.
