Biography

Chris Temple is a film director, producer, and the founder of Optimist, an Emmy-winning documentary studio in Los Angeles. He's directed and/or produced over 15 documentaries and is best known for the feature documentaries Living On One Dollar (Netflix 2015), Salam Neighbor (Netflix 2016), Five Years North (PBS 2020), and This Is Not Financial Advice (Fuse 2023). Most recently Chris executive produced the feature documentary Champions of the Golden Valley (Olympics 2025) alongside Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai. He also served as an Executive Producer on the feature documentary State of Firsts (Tribeca 2025), which follows the election of the first transgender member of congress.

He's a member of the Television Academy; has been honored by HBO as a 40 under 40 filmmaker to watch; as a finalist for the duPont-Columbia award for outstanding journalism; awardee of the Muslim Public Affairs Council Annual Media Award; and recognized alongside Bill Gates and Angelina Jolie as one of the top 100 visionary leaders by Real Leaders Magazine. His work has been nominated for 2 national Emmy Awards, won 1 Gold Telly Award, 2 Anthem Awards, 1 Imagen Award, 4 Shorty Awards, 2 ADDY Awards, 2 Webby Awards, and 2 AVA Digital Awards.

His work has been featured in The New York Times, Variety, Deadline, NPR, and The Atlantic, and has helped raise over $114 million dollars for poverty alleviation, food access, and refugee support efforts.
- IMDb mini biography by: Chris Temple