Early Career

Kristi’s early work profiles both people she knows intimately - like her grandfather, and those farther from family but still intimately explored as such. Jacobson’s debut film, premiering at Sundance and produced by two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple, AMERICAN STANDOFF (2002) chronicles the Teamsters Union’s year-long strike against Overnite Transportation, a nationwide freight company that resisted unionization. TOOTS (2007), National Board of Review Top 5 Documentaries of the Year and The New York Times Critics’ Pick, profiles 1940s American high rollers through the lens of her grandfather , a self made man and founder of his eponymous New York City saloon. A PLACE AT THE TABLE (2012), IDA Pare Lorentz Award winning film asks us to question why one of the wealthiest countries in the world has a hunger crisis.

Recent Work

Kristi’s latest film for HBO, NO ACCIDENT is a legal thriller documenting the seminal lawsuit against the neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizers of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally. NO ACCIDENT earned a 2024 Emmy Nomination and is winner of the Excellence in Directing Award at the Woodstock Film Festival and the top prize from the American Bar Association, the Silver Gavel Award. It is now streaming on MAX.

Her 2016 film, SOLITARY (HBO), is an unflinching exploration of life inside one of America's most notorious supermax prisons where inmates live in 8 X 10 cells, 23 hours a day for months, years and sometimes decades. With unprecedented access to Virginia's Red Onion State Prison, the film captures a complex, unexpected and deeply moving portrait of life inside. SOLITARY was nominated for two Emmys, winning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Documentary as well as a nomination for Independent Spirit’s Truer Than Fiction Award and Cinema Eye Honors Outstanding Achievement in Broadcast Nonfiction Film.

In 2021, Jacobson directed HOMEFRONT, part of the HBO/Max and Sesame Workshop series THROUGH OUR EYES, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and the film was a Columbia-DuPont Award Finalist. HOMEFRONT centers the stories of three children of veteran families coping with the emotional impact of having a wounded parent, navigating the unique challenges of visible and invisible injuries sustained during military service.

Also in 2021, Jacobson directed THE PROTECTORS episode of the critically acclaimed Netflix Original Series DOGS; and “I AM NOT GOING TO CHANGE 400 YEARS IN FOUR” (co-directed with Angela Tucker), a short documentary portrait of Satana Deberry, Durham County’s Black woman D.A. who campaigned on sweeping reform; now in office she is learning just how tough upsetting the status quo can be. This film is co-produced by Chicken & Egg Pictures and Mother Jones, streaming on PBS' Independent Lens.

Other credits include the “Cartel Bank” episode of DIRTY MONEY (2018, Netflix) and TAKE BACK THE HARBOR (2018 Discovery), co-directed with Roger Ross Williams and produced by Motto Pictures.

Producer Work & Branded Work

As a producer, Jacobson’s films include Nausheen Dadabhoy’s directorial debut feature, AN ACT OF WORSHIP (POV/PBS), Elaine Sheldon’s RECOVERY BOYS (Netflix) and THE FIRE THAT TOOK HER (Paramount+) winner of 2023 Emmy for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary.

Some highlights of Jacobson’s commercial and branded work include the Procter & Gamble 2020Olympics “Good is Gold” Seriesof short films featuring Olympic and Paralympians Tom Daley, Allyson Felix, Scout Bassett and Zeina Nasser;“Momentum Shift” for OrangeTheory Fitness, winner of the Brand Films Directing Award;#TheElectionEffect: HEBH (2017, Paramount Network), part of a Webby nominated short film series showcasing life for the next generation of voters following the 2016 election.

Press

Jacobson has appeared on or been featured in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Moyers and Company, CBS Morning News, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Filmmaker Magazine, Time Magazine, and many more. Her work has received support from the Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Institute, Bertha Foundation, Ford Foundation, and she is a 2016 recipient of the Chicken & Egg Pictures Breakthrough Filmmaker Award, which aims to support filmmakers to continue to be strong advocates for urgent issues. Jacobson is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science (AMPAS) and the Director’s Guild of America (DGA). Jacobson is represented for commercials and branded content by NY-based production agency C41 Media.