Stuart Sender has an eclectic background as an Academy Award® nominated filmmaker, broadcast journalist and screenwriter. His credits include producing and directing the Academy-Award® nominated documentary Prisoner of Paradise which also received a Directors Guild nomination and won the prestigious Grierson Award for best documentary on film. Stuart also executive produced The Garden which was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature.

Stuart began his career at CBS news, then worked as Senior Producer of the weekly PBS series South Africa Now, which won a Polk Award for excellence in journalism and a New York Emmy for best newsmagazine. He produced the first exclusive interview with Nelson Mandela following President Mandela's release from prison; and was Senior Producer of the documentary Mandela: Free At Last.

Stuart has worked around the globe: in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Berlin, Capetown, Delhi, Managua and Hanoi; from the huts of peasant farmers to the offices of industry titans; lobster fishing off the coast of Scotland and searching for Spirit Bears in Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest; filming sacred Buddhist ceremonies in India and a Ku Klux Klan cross burning in Pennsylvania; and working in war and conflict zones in Nicaragua, South Africa and the Middle East.

Stuart is a partner in Balcony Films, a Los Angeles based media production and consulting firm. Stuart produces and directs much of Balcony Films award-winning content which has featured some of our best-known public figures and personalities, including: His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Shamir, KKK Grand Dragon David Duke and performers such as Will Ferrell, Jason Alexander, Felicity Huffman, Rosario Dawson and Stevie Wonder.

His current work includes writing the story for THE VOW starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum; and the screenplay adaptation of the acclaimed eco-thriller The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed by John Vaillant.

Start has a bachelor’s degree in Politics from the University of California at Santa Cruz; and a Masters Degree in Journalism from Columbia University.