VANESSA ROWORTH

Feature documentary | Premiered Tribeca Film Festival 2024
Role: Editor

Group Therapy features stand-up comedy stars sitting down for a group therapy session hosted by Neil Patrick Harris to discuss memories from childhood and how mental health relates to their professional journeys.

Director: Neil Berkeley
Production: Hartbeat Productions

Feature documentary | Premieres March 25, 2024 on PBS Independent Lens
Editor

American farmers are dealing with more economic hardships and pressure than ever before. Globalization, mechanization and climate change have left the agriculture industry at a dark crossroads. Greener Pastures is an intimate portrait of four American families, exploring the rise of suicide rates and growing mental health issues among Midwestern farmers.

Supported by Doc Society Climate Story Fund & Catapult Film Fund

Director: Sam Mirpoorian
Producer: Ian Kibbe

Feature documentary | Premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival
Additional Editor

MAESTRA follows five international women as they prepare for and perform in 'La Maestra', the only competition in the world for female orchestra conductors. Personal stories of survival, passion and perseverance are woven together with the drama and excitement of this one-of-a-kind event created to break yet another glass ceiling for women.

Director: Maggie Contreras
Producer: Maggie Contreras, Neil Berkeley, Emma West, Melanie Miller, Lauren Lexton
Editors: Elisa Bonora, Finola Couling, Rupert Hall

Feature documentary | PBS
Editor

Winner of the 2015 Emmy Award for Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting Long Form

Medora follows the down-but-not-out Medora Hornets varsity basketball team over the course of the 2011 season, capturing the players’ stories both on and off the court. Medora is an in-depth, deeply personal look at small-town life, a thrilling, underdog basketball story, and an inspiring tale of a community refusing to give up hope despite the brutal odds stacked against them. On a grander scale, it’s a film about America, and the thousands of small towns across the country facing the same fight.

"Medora exerts an unshakable hold. No spoilers here, but there won't be a dry eye in the house. Thanks to filmmakers of unfailing sensitivity, as well as protagonists of exceptional character and resolve, Medora earns every tear."- The Washington Post

Director: Andrew Cohn & Davy Rothbart
Producer: Rachel Dengiz
Editors: Vanessa Roworth & Mary Manhardt
Production: Beachside Films | Olive Productions | PBS

medorafilm.com
Find the film on PBS

Feature documentary | Premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival
Additional Editor

Where does someone turn when facing an unplanned pregnancy? "Preconceived" is a raw and insightful look into the rise of the enigmatic crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) pervading America. Shedding light on how many of these centers are a part of a movement striving to make abortion unthinkable and illegal, the documentary explores the complex role of deception, finances, faith, and privacy.

Directors: Sabrine Keane, Kate Dumke
Producers: Heather Keane, Maggie Contreras, Sabrine Keane
Main Editor: Sasha Perry

Feature documentary | Coming to PBS POV in 2025
Role: Additional Editor

After coming out as trans, world-record-holding gamer, Narcissa Wright loses her massive fanbase. To win them back, she sets out to break a new record in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and live-stream every minute of her quest.

Premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2023

Director: Jane M. Wagner
Producer: Jane M. Wagner

Documentary Series (Season 2) | *unaired
Editor

The series revolves around the case of Barbara Hamburg, Madison’s mother, who was brutally murdered on March 3, 2010 near her home in the upper-middle class enclave of Madison, Connecticut.

Over the course of eight years, Hamburg interviewed his family members and many others to learn more about his mother’s life and gather evidence in hopes of solving her murder. Along the way, he uncovers a web of familial and local secrets, connections to shadowy figures, and years-old resentments in his deceptively serene hometown. Season 2 continues the journey.

Director: Madison Hamburg
Jigsaw Productions & HBO

Feature documentary | Kino Lorber
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In the late 1970s a group of aspiring New York filmmakers, inspired by the burgeoning underground music scene, takes to the streets to shoot guerrilla-style movies and in the process fosters the influential and highly regarded No Wave movement. This film examines the events that led to No Wave's creation, in which the city itself, which was in decay at the time, plays a significant role. Featuring interviews with Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi, John Waters, Thurston Moore, Debbie Harry and Lydia Lunch.

“The movie aims, rather, to evoke a moment in as much detail and with as much insight as will fit into 95 minutes. In this it succeeds beautifully…Blank City provides a vivid, vicarious tour” - The New York Times

Festivals: Berlin, Tribeca, AFI, HotDocs

Director: Celine Danhier
Producer: Aviva Wishnow
Production: Insurgent Media | Submarine Entertainment

Watch full film on Amazon

Feature documentary | Magnolia Pictures
Additional Editor

BOOM FOR REAL: THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT follows Basquiat's life pre-fame and how New York City, the times, the people and the movements surrounding him formed the artist he became.

Premiered at the New York Film Festival

Director: Sara Driver
Producer: Rachel Dengiz
Editor: Adam Kurnitz

Watch full film on Hulu

Feature documentary | VICE
Editor

Devastated by her best friend’s suicide, a young Lakota woman creates a girls’ boxing team with urgent hope that sport, sisterhood and tradition will guide youth toward a safer path.

Director: Jesse Adler
Producer: Hanna Nordenswan & Tracy Rector
www.boxersofbruledoc.com

Documentary Series | VICELAND
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Elliot Page and his best friend, Ian Daniel, set off on a personal journey to explore LGBTQ cultures around the world.

Nominated for a 2017 Emmy Award for “Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program” and a 2017 GLAAD Media Award for “Outstanding Reality Program”

Starring: Elliot Page & Ian Daniels
Director: David Laven
Producer: Niharika Desai
Co-editor: Michelle Kim

Full season 2 episodes and series here

Feature documentary | Gravitas Ventures
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The inspiring story of Jheri Jones, a 74-year-old transgender divorcee in Mississippi, struggling to keep three generations of her family together while her son Trevor embarks on his own unexpected journey of self-discovery.

“As fascinating as the documentary Grey Gardens..” - The Huffington Post

Supported by SFFILM Documentary Film Fund, IFP & Full Frame

Director: Moby Longinotto
Producer: Aviva Wishnow
Gravitas Pictures | 2017
www.thejonesesdoc.com

Watch on Amazon

Short documentary | WIW New York Times
Editor

Director: Aliya Naumoff
featured in Women in the World | 2018

After spending nearly 25 years in the U.S., MacDella Cooper returned to the country she fled as a teenage refugee — and ran for president.

Unscripted series | HBO
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A documentary news series looking at the week ahead in politics, business, technology, media, and science--and exploring the big topics shaping our world

Directors: Perri Peltz and Matthew O’Neill
Production: DCTV

For full episodes and series: www.hbo.com/axios

Documentary Series | MGM+
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This limited series is the first-ever elevated look at the strange alchemy of mass murder, 1970s paranormal obsession, and the explosion of the horror film genre that gave rise to The Amityville Horror sensation.

Showrunner: Jack Riccobono
Production: B17 Entertainment

Short Documentary Series | TOPIC
Editor

Priests are supposed to guide their flocks, but that doesn’t mean they have all the answers. Four Catholic fathers open up about their struggles both sacred and profane.

Director: Sebastian Mlynarski
produced for Topic.com

Short documentary | VICE
Editor

Did Gen Z Affect the 2020 Election?
Producer: Maria Chui

vice.com

Digital Series
Editor (seasons 1, 2 & 4)

Guitar Power is D'Addario's artist interview series, featuring a diverse array of some of the world's most innovative guitarists - including Julian Lage, Tosin Abasi, Kurt Vile and Nita Strauss.

Watch here