Chris Talbott

A member of the Sundance Institute Collective, Chris is also the founder of OVO, a nonprofit arts collective and Cause Effect Agency, an organization dedicated to helping non-profits. His feature documentary Deep Run examines the diversity of transgender experience through an unexpected coming-of-age story; it premiered on Netflix in 2016. He is currently in post-production on an epic historical doc-series that explores how cities are shaped through the lens of a storied real state developer. It will premiere on YouTube in 2026. Chris has 30 years of experience in the industry and his work has been recognized by numerous films festivals across the United States. Contact Chris if you need help telling a worthy, complex story. Stories shape and guide our culture and it is my delight to bring good stories to life.

Director, Producer & Writer in New York City

Chris Talbott
Chris Talbott

He's an innovative multimedia producer, director and storyteller with 30 years of experience transforming complex stories into impactful content. Specializing in documentaries and history, Talbott combines his passion for storytelling with a deep commitment to social evolution.

a group of people standing around a camera set up

CURRENTLY

Chris has been commissioned to create a doc-series about the development of New York City, all told the thru the experience of one pivotal Brooklyn-based development company. 120 NYC professional, political and creative superstars were interviewed for this project, from Al Sharpton to Renzo Piano and Frank Gehry. All of them were deeply involved in the evolution of the city from the 1970s until today. The multi-series will premiere on its own YouTube channel in 2026.

ABOUT

Chris is a fiction and nonfiction storyteller who has produced, written and directed many movies, video series and plays since finishing his first play in 1993, a hip-hop inspired “folk operetta” told entirely in rhymes with live music accompaniment.

Chris on set directing for a recent docu-series
Chris on set directing for a recent docu-series

Chris has developed several fiction and nonfiction projects for TV and is seeking financing and collaborators for each. His award-winning feature doc Deep Run is currently for sale and streaming on Amazon Prime, Vimeo, and educational sales at Women Make Movies.

As an activist the has produced dozens of creative social justice actions with Cause Effect Agency, a company he founded in 2001 to support worthy causes.

Raised in a large working-class family in Racine, Wisconsin, Chris attended Brown University where he originally intended to study film and theater. His grandfather who worked at the Golden Books printing press ini Racine pushed him to sample history, a subject he personally loved. Highly skeptical, Chris decided to sit in on the 1st day of “Introduction to Colonial Latin American History” by Professor Cope when another desired class was closed.

Cope turned out to be an astounding storyteller. Chris quickly realized that these global civilizations colliding is the paramount unfolding story of our times; wildly misunderstood when known at all, damaged synapses in our collective memories.

Chris majored in history and his interests became global. He was drawn to meet the students of Tiananmen who had dared defy the tanks as he was graduating high school. His father built tractors and he saw Racine’s factories competing intensely with China and losing jobs fast. So he studied the Chinese language then spent one semester studying at Nanjing University in a “proto-capitalist” China (on a bike) in 1992.

Chris directing Cows Take Manhattan, a live performance for Cause Effect Agency.
Chris directing Cows Take Manhattan, a live performance for Cause Effect Agency.

Upon graduation Chris had no plan and no clue. So he drove cross country to spend the summer with his college girl friend and future wife Ari Vena. His first night in Los Angeles he met her childhood buddies, budding superstars Maya Rudolph and Anna Warner, who took them to a ( then unknown) Beck performance in a dive bar. They had all been born into the very heart of entertainment.

Chris decide to move to New York City and was working early mornings for $7/hour as a temp caterer in the bowels of the World Trade Center just months after it had been bombed the flirts time. He knew he was not appropriately leveraging his college degree but despite the examples of the previous summer he still had no clue

Finally a friend told him about a better-paying temp gig if one knew spreadsheets. He took a 2-hour course at a temp agency and then turned a 3-week gig at Goldman Sachs into a partner-track job as an investment analyst covering commodities like gold and the mining companies that produced said metals. He became especially expert in nickel. After 15 months he walked away unable to contribute to a system he could see was rigged, misguide and exploitative of people and the earth.

With a recommendation from Gwyneth Paltrow, another of his wife’s childhood friends, Chris secured a job assisting writer/director Tim Robbins make Dead Man Walking. A highlight of finishing the searing death penalty expose was watching Eddie Vedder and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan record intense spiritual laments that anchored the movie’s score. The movie was nominated for 3 Academy Awards, with Tim’s creative and romantic partner Susan Sarandon wining the Oscar for Best Actress.

As the movie wrapped, Chris was asked to stay and manage Tim’s development company Havoc. While helping Tim make movies, Chris co-founded the arts collective OVO with his 1st wife and some other Racine and LA ex-patrtiots. OVO first focussed on theater and events, including 3 of Chris’ plays, before the digital video revolution opened the door for movie-making. In the year 2000 OVO seized that moment and purchased the Cannon XL1 along with the first edition of Final Cut Pro. They shot The World’s Best Prom that spring in Racine. In 2001 the movie was named Best Documentary at the Wisconsin Film Festival before inspiring a popular prom-mania episode of NPR’S This American Life.

Chris premiers
Chris premiers
Head Count was a project done by Cause Effect Agency to register more voters
Head Count was a project done by Cause Effect Agency to register more voters

When Susan Sarandon learned about Chris’ experience interpreting financial documents as an analyst she asked him to investigate the finances of her charities of choice, them create a list of 3 challenging question to pose to the leadership of each. This role grew and he would eventually screen thousands of requests for action for Tim and Susan, helping them leverage their talent and fame for the most worthy charitable partners.

From these experiences Chris created Cause Effect Agency (CEA), a mission-driven business that helps worthy causes and artists work together to elevate their stories. CEA notably managed dozens of celebrity and entertainment company relationships for Heifer International as it grew from a $17 million to a $120 million + organization; and helped HeadCount register hundreds of thousands of voters.

After dozens of charitable social justice collaborations with Chris, Susan Sarandon executive produced Chris’ last completed documentary Deep Run - an award-winning veritĂ© portrait of a trans-teen’s life in rural North Carolina. Supported by the Sundance Institute, Deep Run premiered at the magnificent Castro Theater in San Francisco opening night of Pride weekend 2015, the same day (by chance) the Supreme Court made marriage legal for gay people. You can imagine the celebration. Deep Run was then broadcast across the country, streamed on Netflix, and is now streaming on Prime and available for educational use through Women Make Movies. The movie also inspired a semester-long curriculum for high school students around its complex themes; it has been taught in thousands of schools in every state of the nation.

Deep Run appeared at DOC NYC
Deep Run appeared at DOC NYC