Nels Bangerter is an award-winning documentary film editor and writer known for finding original and effective approaches to story form and structure. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he has earned career recognition for his body of work from IndieWire magazine as a “Craft of Filmmaking Influencer” and from the Cinema Eye Honors as one of its “20 Artisans of the Decade.”
Nels’s widely-acclaimed work include CAMERAPERSON, the seminal through-the-viewfinder memoir of documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson; APOCALYPSE IN THE TROPICS, a BAFTA-nominated and Brazilian Academy of Cinema Award-winning Netflix documentary about Brazil’s 2022 presidential race; 32 SOUNDS, an innovative film and live-performance exploration of aural and sonic experience; LET THE FIRE BURN, an all-archival examination of the police bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia; DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD, a hybrid docu-comedy about loss and memory; THE HOTTEST AUGUST, a prescient essay-survey of New Yorkers coping with the uncertain future; and RIOTSVILLE, U.S.A., an archival interrogation of America's civil-military reaction to the uprisings of the late 1960s. His films appear across critics’ best-of lists and documentary film program syllabuses, and he has been directly recognized with five International Documentary Association Awards and two Cinema Eye Awards for Outstanding Editing or Outstanding Writing (with two additional nominations); as well as two nominations for News and Documentary Emmys and one for an American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie. He also edited the short fiction film BUZKASHI BOYS, which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Nels has been an advisor at the Sundance Labs and has shared his experience on panels at Sundance, Tribeca, IDFA, Full Frame, Camden, and True/False Film Festivals. He has mentored projects for SFFILM, Firelight Media, True/False-Catapult Film Fund, ESPN/Tribeca Film Institute, BAVC, and Film Independent, and has given presentations for the Sundance Documentary Film Program, at industry conferences for the IDA and True/False, and for university film classes across the country.
Based in Oakland, California, Nels holds an MFA in film production from USC. Before becoming an editor, he worked in a gold mine, lived in a redwood tree, and earned degrees in English literature and electrical engineering from Rice University. He has two terrific kids, ages ten and thirteen.