Talent Guide

Cecilia Brown

  • Discipline:Director, Editor, Producer
  • Program Year:Documentary Story Lab 2026, Grants and Awards 2026

Bio

Cecilia Brown is a documentary director, editor and producer based in Portland, OR, and co-founder of Sideyard Studios. Brown’s directing and producing credits include award-winning shorts Oh Whale (2025, producer) and Strong Grandma (2024, co-director & editor, New Yorker). She has edited multiple documentary shorts including Swept (2025 Emmy Nominee for Best Short Documentary), Teddy (2025) and Walking Two Worlds (Tribeca, 2022). Brown’s work has been supported by The Catapult Development Fund and SF MOMA and published by HBO, Arc’teryx, The North Face and This American Life, among others. She has also been awarded ‘Best Oregon Filmmaker’ by McMinnville Film Festival. Brown has a Master’s in Multimedia Journalism from the University of Oregon.

Current Project

A Bird with a Knife

Logline

A Bird with a Knife explores the 50-year mystery surrounding thousands of cattle mutilations across the American West. Following a veteran investigator, an Oregon sheriff and the ranchers whose cases they’re working to solve, this film is about folklore, faith and the stories we tell when no absolute truth exists.