Jeffrey Leib Nettler Zimbalist is an American filmmaker. He has been Academy Award shortlisted, has won a Peabody, a DuPont, 5 Emmy Awards with 21 Emmy nominations. He is the owner of film and television production company All Rise Films.
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Early life
Zimbalist was born in a Jewish family. He received his bachelor's degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Career
Zimbalist's films have been shown on Netflix, HBO, Apple, ESPN, Showtime, CBS, Paramount+ and theatrically exhibited. He has done commercial work for Gatorade, Pepsi, Verizon,
the National Football League, and other organizations.
Zimbalist's work has also been featured in a retrospective at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, at the Museum of the Moving Image, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.
Filmography
In 2005, Zimbalist teamed up with Matt Mochary to direct and produce the documentary Favela Rising. The film follows the life of Anderson Sa through the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in his attempt to use AfroReggae music to provide a positive outlet for the residents of a dangerous environment.
The film was distributed by Thinkfilm and HBO Documentary Films in North America and was theatrically released in 16 countries. Together with Mochary, Zimbalist won the Best Emerging Filmmaker Award at the 2005 TriBeCa Film Festival. The film also garnered a 2006 Emmy Nomination, was named as the 2005 International Documentary Association's Film of the Year, was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005, and won 36 International Film Festival Awards.
In 2010, Disney / ESPN Films released The Two Escobars which Zimbalist directed and produced with his brother Michael. Zimbalist also was credited as the director of photography and editor. The film was nominated for another Emmy and was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival, and the IDFA International Film Festival.
In 2011, Jeff and Michael Zimbalist's script for The Two Escobars was nominated for a best nonfiction script by the Writers Guild of America, named a top 10 sports film of all time by The Times, and was named 2010 Documentary of the Year alongside The Tillman Story by Sports Illustrated. Of the over 150 films in the Academy Award-winning and Emmy Award-winning 30 for 30 series, the New York Post and Vulture ranked The Two Escobars as the best one.
In 2019, The Hollywood Reporter ranked 30 for 30 the 5th best TV series of the decade behind Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Rectify, and Parks and Recreation. The Zimbalists shared the 2011 Peabody Award with this first season of ESPN Films 30 for 30 filmmakers.
Since, the Zimbalist brothers also directed two other entries into the 30 for 30 series, including Arnold's Blueprint with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Youngstown Boys, featuring hall-of-famer Jim Brown, which won an Emmy in 2014.
Zimbalist directed The Greatest Love Story Ever Told about the Bollywood film industry in India, produced by Shekhar Kapur, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011.
Charitable work
Zimbalist has produced development documentaries and consulted for clients in the United States, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America, including the Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the Templeton Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the UNDP, and various international nonprofit service organizations. He is a Massachusetts State Cultural Council Fellow, a Cinereach grantee, a San Francisco Film Society Rainin Grant recipient, LEF grant recipient, and a Ford Foundation Grantee.
Zimbalist has taught at the New York Film Academy and the Maine Photographic Workshops.
Zimbalist's done philanthropy work for Amigos de las Américas, an organization that he volunteered with as a teenager.