Chris Temple

Chris Temple is a film director, producer, and the founder of Optimist—a prestige documentary studio in Los Angeles. He’s directed and/or produced over 15 documentaries and is best known for the feature films Living On One Dollar (Netflix 2015), Salam Neighbor (Netflix 2016), Five Years North (PBS 2020), and This Is Not Financial Advice (Fuse 2024). Most recently Chris executive produced 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 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 YPO’s Real Leaders Magazine. He’s a member of the Television Academy and his work has 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. You can find his full filmography on IMDB.

He loves the outdoors and is a founding individual member of 1% for the Planet.