Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Gabriela Cowperthwaite is one of several American moviemakers who has transitioned from documentaries to big-budget entertainment. Although Cowperthwaite did her graduate studies at USC—renowned for its cinema school—she earned her master’s degree in political science, not in cinema studies.

After her academic work, Cowperthwaite shifted to the world of documentary filmmaking (first as a producer of television documentary series), making her feature-length debut with City Lax: An Urban Lacrosse Story (2010), about an inner-city elementary school lacrosse team, premiering on ESPN. Cowperthwaite’s second feature was her acclaimed documentary, Blackfish (2013), which investigated the mistreatment of orca whales at SeaWorld aquatic park in Orlando, Florida, and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and received best documentary BAFTA and International Documentary Association nominations.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite was director of her first narrative feature, Megan Leavey (2017), about the true story of Marine Megan Leavey, winner of the Purple Heart, and her combat dog in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, and which co-starred Kate Mara, Ramon Rodriguez, Tom Felton, Bradley Whitford, Will Patton, Common, and Edie Falco, and which grossed a good $14.5 million for distributor Bleeker Street.

Cowperthwaite took on another true story as director of Our Friend (2019), based on an Esquire magazine article, co-starring Jason Segal, Dakota Johnson, and Casey Affleck, but failing at the box office for distributor Gravitas Ventures. Cowperthwaite returned to documentaries as director-producer of an investigative feature collaboration with journalist Nate Halverson, The Grab (2022), premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite took on her biggest-budget movie to date as director of the sci-fi thriller, I.S.S. (2024), starring Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, and John Gallagher, and after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, was released by distributor Bleecker Street.