Ms Eva Orner
Ms Eva Orner is an Academy Award and two-time Emmy Award-winning Australian documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Known for her bold, uncompromising storytelling, she has built a career making films that tackle pressing global issues from human rights abuses and environmental crises to institutional corruption and survivor justice.
Her latest film, Surviving Ohio State, an HBO Original, premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary investigates the Ohio State University sexual abuse scandal, focusing on the survivors and their ongoing fight to hold the institution accountable.
In 2024, she directed Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion, another HBO Original, which premiered at SXSW. The film offers a searing look at the toxic culture of teen brand Brandy Melville and the global ramifications of fast fashion.
Burning, produced for Amazon Studios, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021. The film explores the catastrophic 2019–2020 Australian bushfires and the broader issue of climate change. The film critically examines the role of the Australian government and media in one of the country's worst environmental disasters.
In 2019, Ms Orner directed BIKRAM: Yogi, Guru, Predator, a Netflix Original that also premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, charting the rise and fall of hot yoga founder Bikram Choudhury as allegations of sexual abuse came to light.
Other notable works includes Chasing Asylum, winner of the AACTA Award for Best Feature Documentary, which exposes Australia’s offshore detention regime through whistleblower testimony and firsthand accounts from asylum seekers. She also co-directed the Emmy-winning Out of Iraq, which tells the moving story of two Iraqi men, an army soldier and a translator for the U.S. military, falling in love under dangerous circumstances.
Earlier in her career, Ms Orner directed The Network which premiered at SXSW in 2013 and was acquired by Netflix. The film goes behind the scenes of Afghanistan’s largest independent news network amid intense political turmoil.
As a producer, Ms Orner won an Academy Award and Emmy for Taxi to the Dark Side, a powerful investigation into U.S. torture and interrogation practices. Her producing credits also include Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, The Human Behavior Experiments, and Herbie Hancock: Possibilities.
Ms Orner continues to make urgent, impactful documentaries that challenge power, provoke change, and amplify voices that need to be heard.
Ms Orner holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from Monash University.