The Team
The People of Little Monster Films
Chai Vasarhelyi
Producer I Director
Chai Vasarhelyi is an Academy® Award-winning filmmaker with a storied history of critically acclaimed films. Her work as a director and producer has been celebrated by peers and critics for its portrayal of complex global stories with humanity, empathy and candor.
Vasarhelyi was awarded the Academy® Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2019 for co-directing and co-producing FREE SOLO, an intimate, unflinching portrait of rock climber Alex Honnold, which also received the BAFTA award for Best Documentary, seven Emmy® awards and was nominated for achievement in documentary filmmaking by the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America.
In 2025, Vasarhelyi has two new feature documentaries for National Geographic Documentary Films premiering: LOVE+WAR on acclaimed war photographer Lynsey Addario premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and LOST IN THE JUNGLE, telling the incredible true story of four children who survived a plane crash in the Colombian Jungle, premiered at the Telluride Film Festival.
In 2023, she also co-directed her first scripted feature NYAD for NETFLIX, which saw both stars Annette Bening and Jodie Foster receiving Academy Award nominations.
More recently, Vasarhelyi was also honored with a Peabody and a News & Documentary Emmy Award for co-directing and producing the acclaimed Nat Geo series PHOTOGRAPHER.
In 2021, she co-directed the BAFTA and DGA-nominated documentary THE RESCUE chronicling the enthralling, against-all odds story that transfixed the world in 2018: the daring rescue of twelve boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand.
Other projects include RETURN TO SPACE, about SpaceX and NASA’s first joint spaceflight, which hit the top 10 on Netflix’s most watched films list, and the series EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN for National Geographic.
Her feature MERU won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015 and was on the 2016 Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Feature.
Vasarhelyi’s other films as a director include INCORRUPTIBLE (Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award 2016); YOUSSOU N’DOUR: I BRING WHAT I LOVE (Oscilloscope, 2009), which premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals; A NORMAL LIFE (Tribeca Film Festival, Best Documentary 2003); and TOUBA (SXSW, Special Jury Prize Best Cinematography in 2013).
Vasarhelyi has directed two New York Times Op Docs, two episodes for Netflix’s nonfiction design series ABSTRACT and two episodes for ESPN’s nonfiction series ENHANCED.
She has received grants from the Sundance Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bertha Britdoc, and the National Endowment of the Arts.
She is a member of the DGA, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science (AMPAS) and The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and holds a B.A. in comparative literature from Princeton University.
Vasarhelyi lives in New York City with her children, daughter, Marina, and son, James.
Jimmy Chin
Producer I Director I Photographer
Jimmy Chin is an Academy® Award-winning filmmaker, award-winning National Geographic photographer and professional climber and skier. He has led and documented cutting edge expeditions around the world for over 20 years. He has climbed and skied Mount Everest from the summit and made the coveted first ascent of the Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru. His photographs have graced the covers of National Geographic Magazine and the New York Times Magazine.
In 2019 Chin, along with co-director and co-producer Chai Vasarhelyi, was awarded a BAFTA and the Academy® Award for Best Documentary Feature for FREE SOLO, an intimate, unflinching portrait of rock climber Alex Honnold. The film also received seven Emmy® awards.
More recently he co-directed his first scripted feature NYAD for NETFLIX, which saw both stars Annette Bening and Jodie Foster receiving Academy Award nominations.
In the fall of 2025, Chin has two new feature documentaries for National Geographic Documentary Films premiering – LOVE+WAR on acclaimed war photographer Lynsey Addario, and LOST IN THE JUNGLE on the incredible true story of four children who survived a plane crash in the Colombian Jungle.
Additional projects include the BAFTA and DGA nominated “The Rescue,” and the 2015 Sundance Audience Award winner “Meru.” Chin was also the face of National Geographic’s critically acclaimed series “Edge of the Unknown With Jimmy Chin” which will premiered in 2022.
Chin lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and is the dedicated father of daughter, Marina, and son, James.
Anna Barnes
President
Anna runs all aspects of Little Monster Films, developing content and overseeing the production of films and series from inception to release. Prior to LMF, she worked on many of the top nonfiction films of the past decade, including a long roster of Oscar® winners and nominees such as Ezra Edelman’s OJ: MADE IN AMERICA, Matthew Heineman’s CARTEL LAND, Bryan Fogel’s ICARUS, Yance Ford’s STRONG ISLAND, RaMell Ross’ HALE COUNTY: THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING and Gianfranco Rosi’s FIRE AT SEA. As an executive at Cinetic Media, she oversaw the distribution campaigns for many successful documentaries such as the Oscar®-nominated Banksy documentary EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and Asif Kapadia’s SENNA. Having first worked with Chin and Vasarhelyi on their 2015 hit MERU, she re-teamed with them and National Geographic on the record-breaking theatrical release for the Oscar®-winning FREE SOLO. Anna started her career in Boston working with legendary filmmaker and Oscar®-winner Frederick Wiseman.
Aideen Kane
Vice President of Production
Aideen is responsible for developing and vetting production for features and series in development and pre-production and overseeing production on current projects. Before joining Little Monster Films, she was VP of Production for Fork Films where she shepherded all content from development through distribution. Aideen recently produced THE AMERICAN DREAM AND OTHER FAIRY TALES (dir. Abigail Disney & Kathleen Hughes). She co-produced WOMEN IN BLUE with Beth Levison and produced and co-directed THE 8TH, the story of how Ireland overturned one of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws. Previous credits include award winning documentaries and series including THE ARMOR OF LIGHT (dir. Abigail Disney & Kathleen Hughes), the landmark PBS WOMEN WAR AND PEACE SERIES II, THE TRIALS OF SPRING (dir. Gini Reticker), and THE AWFUL TRUTH for Channel 4 (dir. Michael Moore), among others.
Christina Hunt
Post Production Executive
In her role as Post Production Executive at Little Monster Films, Christina strategizes and oversees post workflows on all projects, starting in development and continuing through final delivery. Christina has worked in film post production since 2000. She started as an Assistant Editor for Errol Morris’s FIRST PERSON and PBS’s NOVA. She has primarily worked with Frederick Wiseman for the past 15 years. While her main role was to assist Mr. Wiseman in editing his films, she also performed the sound edit and worked on location as DIT and occasionally assistant camera and sound. She most recently edited with Wiseman the documentary CITY HALL in 2020 and a fiction piece UN COUPLE in 2021. Christina was also the Manager of Film Post Production at Emerson College from 2008-2018, during which time she co-designed and integrated new post production facilities, mentored students through their filmmaking process and worked with a number of Boston filmmakers, editing and mixing various documentary and narrative projects. Christina’s love of filmmaking started with shooting 16mm film which she continues to do on a regular basis.
Zoe Sua Cho
Production Manager
In her work managing shoots and production for LMF, Zoe draws on over a decade of experience in production. She produced the award winning South Korean feature HOUSE OF HUMMINGBIRD, and THEY, an official selection at Cannes Film Festival. She has worked on numerous productions including Jane Campion's THE POWER OF THE DOG, and upcoming feature documentary BETWEEN GOODBYES from Jigsaw Productions. Zoe is a fellow of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program and a BAFTA Los Angeles Newcomer.
Jake Schick
Post-Production Manager
At LMF, Jake's work ranges from coordinating film shoots, managing all media across 5 different active projects as well as the archives, training AE's, doing VFX, working as an assistant editor on multiple films, and running screenings in the LMF theater. Outside of LMF, they co-wrote/directed/produced/edited the narrative feature MECHANICAL BULLS, now available on Amazon. They also continue to freelance as an editor, DP, and DIT on both narrative and documentary projects.
Ana de Jesus
Director of Development
Ana oversees the development of documentary and scripted features and series for Little Monster Films. Before joining LMF, she was a development executive on the film team at Searchlight Pictures where she worked on CHEVALIER and A COMPLETE UNKNOWN among other films. Ana started her career at CAA in Los Angeles. She holds a B.A. from Princeton University and is from Philadelphia.
Bob Eisenhardt
Editor
Bob is a filmmaker renowned for editing documentaries and a frequent LMF collaborator. He is an Oscar nominee, a four-time Emmy winner, and a two-time winner of the Eddie award from the honorary society of American Cinema Editors. He has over sixty films to his credit. His film, SPACES: THE ARCHITECTURE OF PAUL RUDOLPH, was an Academy Award nominee for Best Short Documentary. Bob edited FREE SOLO, the 2019 Oscar and BAFTA award winner, for which he received the ACE Eddie for Best Editing - Documentary. Other recent films include: SCOTTY AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD; RESTLESS CREATURE: WENDY WHELAN, shown at the 2016 New York Film Festival; and HBO’s EVERYTHING IS COPY: NORA EPHRON, SCRIPTED AND UNSCRIPTED, shown at the 2015 New York Film Festival, a Primetime Emmy nominee, and winner of ACE Eddie for Best Editing – TV Documentary. Other films include WAGNER'S DREAM, which received an Emmy nomination for editing; MERU, Sundance Film Festival audience award winner; VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR; DIXIE CHICKS: SHUT UP & SING; LIVING EMERGENCY: STORIES OF DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS; and CONCRT OF WILLS: MAKING OF THE GETTY CENTER. When not in the edit room, Bob teaches at the School of Visual Arts MFA Program and the thesis master class at the New York Film Academy.
Simona Ferrari
Junior Editor
Simona was born and raised in Italy, where she started her career working as a director and lead editor on countless TV shows aired on the most prominent networks in Europe such as Rai and Mediaset. She traveled the world, directing, shooting and editing documentaries and television episodes for various Italian TV shows. Since her move to New York City in 2015, Simona has worked for several documentaries and films for HBO, National Geographic, Hallmark, and others. She started working at Little Monster Films in 2016 and was associate editor on the 2019 Oscar-winning documentary film, FREE SOLO. Her editing work with LMF includes the Op-Doc WHAT IF HE FALLS? for The New York Times, the web series PAS DE DEUX for the American Ballet Theatre, BRIE LARSON CLIMBS THE GRAND TETON, and several short films for independent directors.
Pagan Harleman
Showrunner
Pagan Harleman is an award-winning showrunner and producer with a impressive background and a gift for shaping innovative and entertaining stories. After attending NYU Grad film she worked with directors Spike Lee, Ang Lee and Alan Rudolph in post-production before transitioning to documentary. For the last decade she has focused on developing original docu-series for network and streaming including ABC, Showtime, Pivot, CNN, TNT, BET, Discovery, Nat Geo, and HBO. She has collaborated with a wide range of celebrated Oscar and Emmy-Award winning filmmakers including Murray Lerner, Robert Redford, Sam Pollard, Terence Wrong, Marc Levin and Matthew Heineman. Her projects include SOME KIND OF BLUE; CHICAGOLAND; the Emmy Award-winning THE STORM; and the Peabody Award-winning HOPKINS. Most recently she developed and Executive Produced the IDA Award-winning docu-series THE TRADE, which premiered at Sundance and screened on Showtime, and Executive Produced Matthew Heineman's upcoming documentary feature THE FIRST WAVE, which will be released by Participant and Nat Geo. She is currently producing two new projects with LMF for Nat Geo.
Suzanne Giordano
Line Producer
Suzanne is a Brooklyn-based Line Producer who has been working in production management for over a decade. She has a wide range of experience, from commercials to reality, and most prominently, documentaries. As a Line Producer, Suzanne has overseen production on a number of projects, most recently MURDER IN THE BAYOU for Showtime, and EMPIRES OF NEW YORK for CNBC. She is currently working on two new series projects for LMF.
Clair Popkin
Cinematographer
Clair is a cinematographer working mainly in the commercial, documentary and film fields, and a frequent collaborator of LMF. Clair first worked with Chai Vasarhelyi on her episode of the Netflix series ABSTRACT: THE ART OF DESIGN and has been working with Little Monster Films ever since; Clair was a Co-DP on FREE SOLO, for which he earned a Primetime Emmy. Clair shoots documentary films and commercials all over the world for a diverse set of clients including, Netflix, HBO, Apple, Hulu And National Geographic.