Maya Craig is a documentary filmmaker and director of photography based in San Francisco and working internationally. Her focus is on character-driven storytelling about climate and the environment, with a specialization in vérité cinematography. She has been a National Geographic Explorer since 2019 looking at the global climate and geopolitical impacts of a warming Arctic, a journey that has brought her to Alaska, Svalbard, Iceland, and across Europe to film with scientists, policymakers, and indigenous communities. Her NGS-supported short film Healy was a 2023 Jackson Wild Media Awards finalist and was featured as part of the Ocean Pavilion at COP28. As director of photography for Swiftwater Films, Maya has shot a number of documentaries about restoration in the Western US including The Lost Salmon (Emmy Award Winner NW 2023), Bring the Salmon Home (Jackson Wild Media Awards finalist 2022), and Guardians of the River (EarthXFilm Impact Award 2021). The team is now in production on the Redford Center-supported feature Undamming Klamath, chronicling the largest river restoration project ever undertaken, currently underway on the Klamath River. Maya is also a DP and co-producer on feature documentary Battle for Laikipia, about conservation and pastoralism in Northern Kenya, which is in post-production and has been supported by Doc Society Climate Story Fund, Ford Foundation JustFilms, and Wild Lives Foundation. Her first documentary Water Town, about a water privatization conflict in Northern California, was broadcast nationally on PBS and helped lead to the town securing its water rights. Maya brings a background in creative agency production, and has directed and shot brand collaborations with Patagonia, Google, National Geographic Society, Vox, Vogue and others. She is a fellow at London’s Royal Geographical Society, and holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science from Colorado College and a Master’s in Documentary Film from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
maya@mayacraig.com | +1 415.302.2745