Samantha Curley

Samantha Curley is an award-winning documentary film producer and creative entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. She is the Co-Founder of Level Ground, which is both a 501(c)3 nonprofit artist collective and production company. Her most recent film UNION (dir. Stephen Maing, Brett Story) won a Special Jury Award for "The Art of Change" at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. She also produced Framing Agnes (dir. Chase Joynt) which won the NEXT Innovator Award and Audience Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary. She's held fellowships with the Producers Guild of America (2022), NBCU Original Voices (2022), and Impact Partners (2023). In 2023, she received a Cali Catalyst grant awarded to California changemakers whose bold actions are impacting the arts and culture sector. In 2024, she was named to DOC NYC's 40 Under 40 list which spotlights young creatives that are making an impact on the field of documentary. And in 2025 she won a Cinema Eye Honors award for Outstanding Achievement in Production for her work on UNION. Curley also authored a case study that's become the most read article on Distribution Advocates Substack, about the symmetry between UNION's message of worker solidarity and the film's grassroots approach to distribution and marketing.