In March 2021, we welcomed Executive Producer Isaac Bolden as part of The 20/20 Series, created by NYFA’s Creative Director of Filmmaking and Cinematography, Liz Hinlein.
Isaac Bolden is an executive producer with a distinguished array of work from white-collar crime to high fashion, storm chasing, full (tattooed) sleeves, death row to the friendly skies.
Bolden’s 1998 short film, Final Act, Executive Produced by Danny Glover, tackled the final thoughts of a man on death row and enjoyed a successful run on IFC. In the early 2000s, he began work with Granada New York, and helped create/produce what is now cable’s longest-running series, The First 48 (A&E), a follow-doc with police from multiple cities as they attempt to solve local homicides. He produced Emmy-nominated documentaries for A&E’s franchise Investigative Reports with Bill Kurtis: Anatomy of 9/11, Portrait of A Terrorist: The Muhammad Atta Story, Room Raiders (MTV), and Airline (A&E), which granted exclusive access to Southwest Airline’s operations.
In 2005, Bolden was tapped by Charlie Corwin and Clara Markowicz’s Original Media, known for its widely nominated independent films (The Squid and The Whale, Half Nelson) to produce for the newly formed small screen unit of its production house. Original Media specialized in subculture talent-driven docu-series and Bolden produced: Miami Ink, LA Ink (TLC), Storm Chasers (Discovery), The Rachel Zoe Project (Bravo), and Johnny (Weir) Be Good (Sundance). By 2013, Bolden began work with Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, bringing his journalistic provocative storytelling style to television, producing: Death Row Stories (CNN); Dirty Money (Netflix), The New Yorker Presents (Amazon), Cooked, and Salt Fat Acid & Heat (Netflix), and Hip Hop: The Songs that Shock America (AMC), a six-part series, in partnership with Executive Producers Black Thought and Questlove of The Roots and Shawn Gee. Bolden’s most recent Jigsaw work in 2019 include Why We Hate (Discovery), and The Innocence Files (Netflix), with Executive Producers Alex Gibney, Liz Garbus, and Roger Ross Williams; each group working with the team(s) at The Innocence Project creating nine films in the form of three documentaries to expose (in)justice through wrongful: prosecution, witness identity and tainted evidence.
The 20/20 Series is a pop-up event that takes us into the homes, hubs, and workspaces of an array of dynamic creative visionaries to allow for relaxed, engaging conversations on craft, creation, and artistic vision. Each conversation with a creative visionary features 20 minutes of discussion with a moderator and a 20-minute Q&A from YOU, the audience.
