Biography

Laura Checkoway is an Oscar and Emmy nominated filmmaker known for intimate character-driven stories. Her breakthrough film Edith+Eddie received an Academy Award® nomination and Emmy nomination in 2018 and won numerous awards including the IDA Documentary Awards Best Short.

Laura directed The Cave of Adullam which premiered at Tribeca in 2022 winning Best Documentary Feature and the Audience Award. The film is available on ESPN, Hulu, & AppleTV. In an interview with Deadline, producer Laurence Fishburne said: "She has a cinematic sensitivity and a doctor's bedside manner... Laura doesn't impose her personality or her energy onto anything. It boils down to her humanity and her ability to see the humanity in all."

On World Refugee Day 2025, Al Jazeera English released her latest documentary The Cat Man Eshete, garnering rave reviews and winning multiple festival awards.

She served as series director on an original doc series reframing perceptions about refugees. Laura's work has been noticed by some of the world's biggest brands, with documentaries that she directed winning the Brand Entertainment Webby Award in both 2024 and 2025.

Spanning several years with a young homeless mother masked in tattoos, Laura's award-winning debut film Lucky premiered at Hot Docs and Doc NYC and screened at film festivals across the globe and on TV.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous