BIOGRAPHY

Paxton Winters’s first documentary film, Silk Road ala Turka, was made while traveling 18 months by camel caravan through China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey. His feature film debut, Crude, about two opportunistic American backpackers who stage their own kidnapping, won the Best Feature Narrative award at the Los Angeles International Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival. Following this, Paxton directed the final season of the hit Turkish crime drama series, Alacakaranlik (Twilight). His second script, Outside the Wire, which was developed in the prestigious Sundance Institute Writer’s Lab, will be begin production in Iraq this year.

Paxton’s second feature film, Pacified (produced by Reagent Media and Fox International) will be distributed in 2020 by 20th Century Fox. He developed the project closely with community members from Morro dos Prazeres, a favela in Rio, Brazil where he’s resided for 8 years. The film garnered three jury prizes at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, including the Golden Shell for Best Film, a Silver Shell for Best Actor (Bukassa Kabengele) and the Jury Prize for Best Cinematography (Laura Merians). Pacified went on to win the Brazilian Audience Award for Best Brazilian Film at the International Mostra de Sao Paulo. Pacified is also the first film to win both the Cinematographer’s Debut and Director’s Debut sections at the International Camerimage Festival in Poland.

As a producer/ fixer/ cameraman, Paxton has also shot numerous news features from the Middle East to the Amazon rainforest for CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Arte and Dutch NOS.