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Bio

Hillary Pierce is an EMMY® award-winning documentary filmmaker and impact producer who splits her time between Austin and Marfa, Texas. She began her career under the mentorship of Direct Cinema pioneer Albert Maysles, which shaped her deep commitment to telling intimate, human stories through film. Over the last decade, Hillary has produced critically acclaimed documentaries, including TOWER, a groundbreaking, animated retelling of the 1966 University of Texas mass shooting, which won the Grand Jury Documentary Prize at SXSW, was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and won the 2018 EMMY® for Outstanding Historical Documentary. Her next major project, The River and the Wall, followed five friends as they traveled the Texas-Mexico border to explore the environmental and social consequences of Trump’s border wall. The film premiered at SXSW, won the Louis Black "Lone Star" Award, and was nominated for a 2020 EMMY® for Outstanding Nature Documentary. She also produced At the Ready, a powerful coming-of-age documentary about high school students training to become law enforcement officers on the U.S.-Mexico border, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. As an impact producer, Hillary specializes in designing campaigns that resonate deeply with audiences, forming strategic partnerships, securing sponsorships, and organizing community screenings. She has collaborated with numerous organizations to maximize the reach of her films, ensuring they foster dialogue and inspire social change. Most recently, she has been working on the impact campaign for Zurawski v Texas, a 2024 documentary directed by her At the Ready collaborators Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, which explores reproductive rights in the face of legal battles in Texas.