On making curiosity your north star

A two-time Academy Award®-winning director and entrepreneur, Ben Proudfoot is the creative force behind Breakwater Studios. His innovative brand funding model launched a prolific decade for Proudfoot. A landmark partnership with The New York Times produced 16 collaborations, including The Queen of Basketball, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the 94th Academy Awards®. In 2024, Proudfoot won a second Academy Award® for The Last Repair Shop. Proudfoot views real-world impact as a film’s highest achievement, advocating for The Queen of Basketball’s Lusia Harris’ legacy as a basketball pioneer, and inspiring a $15M capital campaign for the The Last Repair Shop facility. Today, Breakwater Studios has expanded to multiple Los Feliz facilities where Proudfoot leads a filmmaking staff producing original and commissioned documentaries with trusted partners like Google, UNICEF, and L’Oréal. He hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Proudfoot is accomplished sleight-of-hand magician and has performed at The Magic Castle in Los Angeles.

You’re a two-time Academy Award winner and three-time nominee. How did you feel about the Oscars this year, and what direction do you feel like we’re collectively heading in, in terms of the future of cinema?

Did you see the opening monologue where Conan O’Brien wound up for a big joke about short documentaries, and the cheer from the crowd was so loud that it kind of ruined his joke? I loved it. I loved all of the old-school Hollywood titans in the orchestra section, craning their necks, looking up, thinking, “Who are these short documentary people?” There was something so prescient about that, of Hollywood not quite understanding what the big deal was, or what the passion truly is behind short documentaries. I think the future will break in favor of the short documentary. And I think the 2026 Oscars was an early sign of that.

With short docs, there is not really much time for digression in the story. How do you evaluate a story for the ways that it can survive that kind of compression?

When I make a film, I will interview the person at length, for many hours–often eight or nine–about their whole life story, from their first memory up until today. And then I have a filtration process. A couple of hours after the interview, I will write down the things that stood out to me: things that were particularly surprising, memorable, emotional, or insightful.

As a documentary filmmaker, you might have a moment with someone where they’re telling you a story that they’ve told 100 times before. And then there’s other moments where you’re watching them actually put two and two together for the first time. And those are always interesting moments, because that’s what makes it more than just a talking head reciting things. You’re actually watching the moment that this person connects the dots.

So, my memory is a bit of a filter of what made an impression on me two hours after. And then generally around a week or two later is when I have my first day with an editor. That’s when I’ll have another opportunity for filtration. What do I still remember then? And those are the things that I will highlight to the editor first. So a lot of it is what made an impact on me in the interview; those are the things that I put forward in the edit. But it always comes back to that initial impulse of why I wanted to make the film in the first place, and what burning question I had will become its spine.

How do you handle the age-old documentarian conundrum of both dedicating your time to your craft, but also being present in the world and tapped into new, fresh stories? How do you balance taking the time to tell something well, but also living life in a way that allows you to have something to say?

In general, I’ve been obsessed with making documentaries, and have occasionally been wrenched away from that by some pressing matter, or loss, or death, or conflict. I’ve really learned a lot about myself, the world, and other people in those moments. But a lot of what I’ve learned about humanity has been from making films–from interviewing people. I’m genuinely curious how people make decisions, how they get through things, why they do this instead of that, what inspires them, what their real motivations are. And that’s a lot of what drives my curiosity in the interview, because I want to know, both for the sake of the film, but also for my own life.

Do you find that you’re someone who’s very easily touched by raw human experiences? Or do you approach your work more objectively, with the audience in mind?

I’m not objective at all. I’m totally subjective. I love the people that I make films about, and the work that I put into the films is an expression of my love and admiration for them. A lot of my films have a strong element of advocacy where I try to platform [the participant] in a way that is memorable and as they want it to be. I’m not an investigative journalist, and that’s okay. There are amazing filmmakers who make those kinds of films, but I’m definitely coming from a subjective standpoint where I’m putting a lot of my opinions and my love for the subject or those people or what they went through into the movie. There’s a lot of passion and emotion for wanting to tell those stories and wanting people to understand what the person is saying and how important their story is.

Your first film was a 9-minute short called “ink&paper.” What do you appreciate about the version of yourself that made that film?

I like that film. I mean, formally I look at it and say, “I’m not a cinematographer.” “Oh, there’s a lot of room for improvement in this area or that area.” But when I think about that film, I just think about what my motivation was and where my heart was. I just admired these craftspeople, and I wanted to shed light on their struggle to figure out how to both make these beautiful crafts and make their businesses work. It touched me to be welcomed into their lives. I wanted other people to have that experience. I made the film for a class called 290 at USC, “Introduction to Filmmaking.” And you’re not supposed to put your films online. It’s against the rules. But I put this one up on Vimeo, and it didn’t have a password because I didn’t know how to put a password on. Then somebody put it on a blog, it picked up some traction, and Vimeo gave it a Staff Pick and then 100,000 people watched it. Then the film school realized and said, “This is totally against the rules.” But it was too late. Actually, a bunch of people came to those businesses and showed up for these people and I was reminded that the work is important. I wanted to make sure that this little flickering candle [of their business] didn’t go out.

That’s more or less the same kind of thing that I’m doing now–paying attention to things on the fringes that either are at the risk of dying or being ignored, people who are at the end of their life whose story hasn’t really been heard before, or the last musical instrument repair shop, and bring them to center stage. I like to take the craft of filmmaking that normally is reserved for the most famous people in the world—a big orchestral score and anamorphic lenses and great craft in every category—and bring it to these stories that have been ignored for some reason. I love doing that. I think it’s fun. And I think it starts a conversation and reminds us that the world is big and there’s all kinds of different stories and perspectives. Just because we don’t know the story doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Do you view your body of work as compounding where each film builds on the last? Or are you drawn to individual stories that are interesting to you?

From my perspective, I’m just drawn to stories that I want to watch a movie about. If it doesn’t already exist, I’ll make it. That’s kind of what drives me. But I can also see that there’s a pattern. I’m drawn to people who are older, and have had a lot of experience in their lives, and have some wisdom to share. I think it’s a responsibility of documentary filmmakers to make sure that we use our power to give the microphone to people who haven’t had it before. And if that all adds up to something, great, but I just enjoy the process and I haven’t gotten tired of it.

You’ve had really incredible collaborators on your projects. You recently co-directed with NBA star Stephen Curry and have had Michelle and Barack Obama as Executive Producers on your projects before. How does trust from a collaborator of that echelon impact a project?

With Steph [Curry], we’re both very focused, driven people who really want to make the best possible thing. There is so much crossover between sports and filmmaking, in terms of collaboration, leadership, discipline, resilience after failure, and how do you deal with self-doubt. Actually, I think what athletes are really good at is giving feedback without it being personal. But honestly, the most fulfilling collaborations I’ve experienced are with people that I’ve been making films with for 15 years: Sean Higgins, who’s done the sound on every single one of my films, Nick Wright, who edited The Baddest Speechwriter of All who I started working with over a decade ago, Monica Salazar who I met in film school and was in my class the day that I screened “ink&paper” and edited my latest feature documentary, “The Eyes of Ghana.” Those really are the most fulfilling because our hearts and lives are braided together.

Are there any parts of the filmmaking process that still feel mysterious to you after all of these years making films?

A lot. The alchemy stuff that has to do with the audience’s expectations and things that are safe to assume the audience is feeling is mysterious. It’s a real question—what will the audience’s expectations be, what assumptions can we make, and what assumptions can’t we make? I find it endlessly fascinating, but totally mysterious. There’s a thousand tricks in the book to try to understand that and tell the story, but as soon as I think I’ve figured it out, it doesn’t work.

I’m also endlessly fascinated by the art of film scoring and music. I think it’s perhaps the most advanced craft that we are working with—certainly far older than photography or even dramaturgical writing, for example. There are so many ways that it can enhance and communicate our emotional experiences. As someone who’s not a composer, I think it’s an incredible mystery how a composer can pull a totally new layer into the movie that wasn’t there before. It oftentimes makes the movie. I find that very mysterious and interesting. Same with sound: sound effects, backgrounds, pauses, and the way that sound works. It’s one of the territories of filmmaking that we have the least vocabulary to express ourselves with. How do you describe a certain sound? I’m constantly trying to understand how the soundtrack is making me, separate from music, feel or think certain things. It’s critical when editing vérité stuff. A soft mumble pre-lap can change the whole scene, even if the words don’t have any meaning. I think that movies can be really powerful, like lightning. And I’m always trying to figure them out.

You used to practice magic. What are the similarities between magic and filmmaking, and why do you feel like you were drawn to both forms?

I’ve always loved a big show. My sister was a ballet dancer. She was in the Nutcracker when I was a little kid. I remember going to see her at this theater in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There were flash pots and illusions and huge puppets on stage. It really inspired me. I wanted to be part of that somehow. And I always wanted to be a magician. When I was younger, I saw a magician on the Halifax boardwalk, and I harassed him until he took me on as a student. We went to the Canadian championships that summer and he won the senior championship and I won the junior championship. And there was stiff competition, but what was interesting was because I didn’t know anything, my act was totally original. I had invented all these magic tricks in my basement and the way it was weighted, that gave me a lot of extra points. That’s also what brought me to Los Angeles; I wanted to join the Magic Castle Junior program Then I decided I didn’t want to be a magician after all; I wanted to make movies. It was an even bigger, more collaborative magic trick.

I do think they’re very similar. It’s a lot of time spent developing a relatively short experience for other people that makes them hopefully feel wonderment and awe, releases you from gravity for a few minutes, and makes you believe that anything is possible. I love that. I think we need it. It’s an essential medicine that we all need in our lives. We need to believe that just because something has never been done before, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And we need to be reminded of that often. I think magic does that. I think good films do that, too.

Is there anything that you incorporate into your daily practice as a filmmaker?

I watch a lot. People send me their rough cuts and I watch a lot of work in progress—a lot of my own work in progress, a lot of work in progress of other directors who we’re working with at [Breakwater Studios]. I try my best to keep my eyes open to read at night. Oftentimes it’s nonfiction about filmmakers I admire. I spend a lot of time listening to classical music, or new film music and trying to think and incorporate that. And then also, I like just incorporating new methodologies. We did animation for the first time on The Baddest Speechwriter of All. I hadn’t done a feature documentary in 10 years and made one with The Eyes of Ghana. I really like being in a position where we’re trying to do things that we haven’t done before or, maybe no one has done before. That really puts a pip in my step. That’s what gets me excited. Where I’ve learned a lot from is committing myself to very difficult challenges and then having to figure out how to get it done. I’m attracted to the idea of the lost cause. It’s what gets me out of bed.