Katja Esson is an Academy Award-nominated, Emmy award winning filmmaker based in Miami, known for her character-driven documentaries tackling race, class and gender. Her documentary short Ferry Tales garnered awards at international film festivals, was nominated for an Oscar and premiered on HBO in 2004. Esson has a longstanding relationship with ARTE and recently created and directed two highly rated five-part documentary
series: Backroads USA (2014) and American Rivers (2016), which aired on ARTE in 2017 and PBS in 2018. She is currently working on Razing Liberty Square, a feature documentary on climate gentrification in Miami.