Feel like a Filmmaker: Zach Marks
An Oscar shortlisted producer and documentarian on finding the stories worth telling.
Los Angeles-born filmmaker Zach Marks explores resilience, renewal, and the relationship between people and the environments they inhabit. He’s drawn to stories about how people and places recover from loss, and his work reflects that.
His first documentary, A Valley Reborn, took him to Telluride, Colorado, where the EPA and US Forest Service were quietly working to undo a century of mining damage embedded in the headwater of the San Juan River. It wasn’t a glamorous or obvious story. But Zach found it the way he discovers most of the subject matter surrounding his stories, by going out, talking to people, and following the chain that links everything together.
“Going out and talking to people really brings new perspectives and opens new ideas to follow. Also Instagram.”
That instinct led him to All the Walls Came Down, where he served as associate producer. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and went on to be shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film.
“Any recognition from a project that you’ve ever worked on is a sublime feeling. My first-ever festival acceptance will always be my favorite.”
His most recent film, Feathers, is a short documentary made with Descanso Gardens, following three artists as they rebuild their lives in the wake of the Eaton Canyon Fire. It is, like everything Zach makes, a story about recovery and triumph, about persevering loss and starting anew.
The stories Zach tells exist because he went looking for them. The least we can do is make sure those stories are easy to find once he tells them. Every filmmaker deserves one hub to host the work they make, where it can be seen and tracked every which way possible. That’s why we’re building KNOWN.
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