An American photographer and director, born in Seattle, Washington, USA. She studied at Brown University in 1987 with a BA in Literature and Fine Arts. After working for two years in West Africa on documentary film projects, she joined the Higher Institute of Cinema Studies in Paris, France. She graduated in 1994, and her first film, Foreign Body, was produced in 1996. Her second film, Innocent Until Proven Guilty, was produced in 1999. Her other films include Derrida (2002), a documentary about the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. She presented Deadline (2004), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 and was selected for prime time on NBC. Her films also include Asylum, a short documentary filmed in Ghana and nominated for an Oscar in 2004. Darfur Now, a documentary film was shown in 2006, and Pray The Devil Back to Hell, which won Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008. Her work (The Oath) in 2010, for which she won the Sundance Film Festival Award, directed by (Laura Poitras), revolves around the driver of the former leader of Al-Qaeda (Bin Laden), called (Abu Jandal).