Isabel Bethencourt

As a young, bright, visionary, Sundance award-winning director and cinematographer, Isabel’s ability to trust her own gut as a filmmaker and to capture real stories and raw emotion with a fresh cinematic style has positioned her as one of documentary fimmaking’s boldest new voices. Isabel graduated from NYU where she studied cinematography, anthropology and documentary film.

Her work as a director and cinematographer has been published by ESPN, GQ, The Wall Street Journal and Vogue. Isabel’s unique ability to create an honest space between her camera’s lens and her subjects can be seen throughout her work – from her documentary short Grounded, which premiered at the Margaret Mead Film Festival, to Isabel's debut documentary feature Cusp, acquired by Showtime after winning the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival, and nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary.

Following one year in the lives of three teenage friends in a Texas town, Cusp explores the definitions of freedom and consent, how modern young women rebel against, or assimilate to, societal expectations and the myriad of pressures placed on their coming of age, and the ability to see what paths are available to them to reach a fuller sense of self.

Isabel’s original branded content Embodied, for Novo Nordisk explores the complex psychological and emotional relationships we have with our bodies, along with how interior and exterior perception reinforce and challenge the social system in which we see ourselves, fat-phobia and physical bias. Embodied premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.