cultivating connection through story
Filmmaker. Oral Historian. Storytelling Strategist. Explorer.
Maggie Lemere is a documentary filmmaker, National Geographic Explorer, and oral historian whose work explores the relationships between people, place, and the living world. Through long-term collaborations with communities around the world, she creates films that explore how relationships—to land, culture, memory, and one another—shape our understanding of belonging, stewardship, and the futures we imagine.
Grounded in deep listening and collaborative storytelling, her work invites audiences to see beyond headlines—to discover the connections between culture, ecology, memory, and belonging. Her films have screened internationally and are created in partnership with communities, scientists, artists, and organizations working toward a more just and regenerative future.
Selected Work
As people and our relationship to the environment face unprecedented challenge—from the climate crisis to the sixth mass extinction—delve into stories about people and communities whose wisdom and resilience can teach us.
Land of Canaan
Director
Amid the ancient olive groves of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian farmers work to preserve not only their livelihoods, but a relationship with the land cultivated over thousands of years. Land of Canaan explores ecology, resilience, and belonging through the enduring bond between people and place.
Vs. Goliath
Director & Producer
Across the United States, everyday people confront some of the world's most powerful fossil fuel companies to protect the places they call home. From Louisiana's Cancer Alley to Appalachia, Greater Chaco, and Port Arthur, the series follows communities transforming grief and love into collective action.
Above and Below the Ground
Producer
In Myanmar, Indigenous communities, punk rock musicians, and faith leaders unite to defend a sacred river threatened by a Chinese-built megadam. The film follows a movement fighting to protect both a watershed and a way of life.
“The olive tree is... the very lifeblood binding together the past and the future, a link between generations and nature, and a millennia-old symbol of identity and resilience.”
— RAI Trento Award Jury
Selected Collaborators
