Documentary Film Production

Group Theory makes documentary films that find the person inside the story, whether the work begins with a character, a place, or a topic to illustrate. The studio was founded in Brooklyn in 2010 by Ben Nabors, and our documentaries have premiered at leading festivals, played on television, streamed worldwide, and entered museum collections and university classrooms.

William and the Windmill, our first feature, follows a Malawian teenager who builds a windmill from a library book and changes the future of his village. It won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at SXSW. The Happy Film follows designer Stefan Sagmeister through a year of experiments in happiness, and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Brooklyn Farmer follows the crew of Brooklyn Grange as they construct the largest soil-based rooftop farm in the world.

We direct and produce features, shorts, and documentary series, and we take select commissions from institutions and brands whose stories deserve a documentary treatment rather than an advertisement.

Selected Work

William and the Windmill. The Happy Film. Brooklyn Farmer. MIT Emerging Thailand.

In Development

A documentary feature with the Southern District of New York.

Have a documentary story to tell?