Aaron Kopp

Aaron Kopp is an award-winning director, producer, and Emmy-nominated cinematographer who grew up in the Kingdom of Eswatini. Aaron shot and co-produced the Oscar-winning film Saving Face about acid attacks in Pakistan. He was also cinematographer for the Sundance premiered and Oscar-nominated film, The Hunting Ground, about sexual assault on college campuses.

Aaron has worked on documentaries, television series, and commercials for HBO, Netflix Originals, National Geographic, Discovery, CCTV-China, UK Channel4, and many others.

His feature directorial debut, Liyana, is a documentary/animated fiction hybrid about orphaned children in Eswatini who transform past trauma into an original tale about a girl on a quest to save her young twin brothers. The film, executive produced by Emmy-winning actress Thandiwe Newton (HBO’s Westworld), received critical and audience acclaim. Liyana won more than 35 awards from film festival juries and audiences around the world. The film was acquired by Abramorama (Jane, Montage of Heck) and released theatrically in more than fifty markets across the United States. The film premiered on Sundance Now in 2021.

Aaron’s work has been awarded grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, National Geographic, and Bertha Doc Society. His work has screened at the MoMA in New York, the Palace of Culture and Science in Poland, the British Film Institute, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

Given his upbringing in Africa and his long track record of cross-cultural filmmaking collaboration, Aaron has a deep passion for championing diverse voices and working alongside underrepresented communities to tell nuanced and artful stories.