Kimberlee Bassford

Kimberlee Bassford combines her love for storytelling with her background in journalism to bring the underrepresented stories of girls and women to the world. She previously directed and produced the documentaries MY CHINATOWN, WITH ALOHA (2022), WINNING GIRL (2014, The World Channel, Women Make Movies/Java Films), PATSY MINK: AHEAD OF THE MAJORITY (2008, PBS, Women Make Movies) and CHEERLEADER (2003, HBO Family, Documentary Educational Resources) and was a producer on two national PBS documentary series: UNNATURAL CAUSES: IS INEQUALITY MAKING US SICK? (2008) and THE MEANING OF FOOD (2005). She has garnered numerous honors for her work, including film festival audience awards and grand jury prizes, Firelight Media’s Spark Fund Award, a duPont-Columbia Award, Student Academy Award and CINE Golden Eagles. In 2021, Hawai‘i Women in Filmmaking recognized the significance of her work in a short documentary about her for its docuseries REEL WAHINE OF HAWAI‘I.

Kimberlee’s films have been supported by the Sundance Institute, CNN, CBS, HBO, PBS, ITVS, Center for Asian American Media, Pacific Islanders in Communications, International Documentary Association, Film Independent, Firelight Media, Chicago Media Project, Fund for Investigative Journalism, Australian International Documentary Conference, Doc Edge, Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc), Women in Film, Brown Girls Doc Mafia (BGDM) and Hawai‘i Women in Filmmaking. She has served on juries for the Hawai‘i International Film Festival, ‘Ohina Short Film Showcase and Guam International Film Festival and is a member of A-Doc, BGDM, Documentary Producers Alliance and Film Fatales. Kimberlee holds a BA in psychology from Harvard University and a Master of Journalism from the University of California Berkeley. She owns Making Waves Films LLC, a documentary production company in Honolulu, Hawai‘i.