With an eye for beauty and a lust for meaning, GUSH Productions makes award winning, character driven, journalistic, personal, & essay style non-fiction films that are engaging, entertaining, and provocative. With over 20 years of experience creating quality content for outlets including PBS, MTV, ABC, CNN, FRONTLINE, FRONTLINE/World, POV, Independent Lens, Global Voices, NPR, A&E, History Channel, Lifetime, Variety, Al Jazeera Intl, and PRI, GUSH's work has been released theatrically, toured internationally on the film festival circuit, and been broadcast to millions of people globally. GUSH’s films have reached households across all regions and demographics throughout the United States, and have been shown on every one of PBS’s strands for independent film, including Independent Lens, POV, Global Voices, and also FRONTLINE.
GUSH specializes in short and feature length storytelling, with a style that ranges from traditional broadcast polish to edgy hybrid content. Founded by filmmaker Sam Grant in 2001, GUSH’s greatest asset is its worldwide network of professionals (scores of them trained by Sam herself through her work at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford’s Knight Fellowship) ready to take on any job, anywhere. Beyond journalism, GUSH works with corporate clients like IDEO, Pandora, Electronic Arts, AT&T, and Merrill Lynch to create cutting-edge, story-driven, work that meets the needs of our time. Whatever your story, the creative, reliable, and easy to work with team at GUSH can help you bring your vision to life.
Who We Are
Sam’s work has received many awards and honors including the National Press Club Award, the National Ethics Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Arts & Culture Program, A National Emmy nom for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary, a CarnegieKnight News 21 Fellowship, a BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship, & a Yale Poynter Fellowship among many others. Sam's work has been supported by ITVS, PBS, CPB, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Ford Foundation, USAID, The Logan Family Foundation, the Sundance Doc Fund, the Skoll Foundation, The Berkeley Film Foundation, and many others, including private investors and donors. After an early stint in Silicon Valley, Sam founded GUSH and taught visual journalism at both Stanford University and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she taught for 15 years. When not Directing, Shooting, or Producing films, you'll find Sam moonlighting as a keynote speaker at conferences and Universities around the world, playing music with friends, surfing, gardening, cooking big meals, and wrangling her 3 kids in the streets of San Francisco.
AWARDS / FILM FESTIVALS / PRESS / SUPPORTERS
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What People Are Saying
Awards
2023 Winner, Producer on Special that won the National Emmy: Outstanding
Arts & Culture Program (Variety - Power of Women: Changemakers)
2021 Wexner Heritage Fellowship
2018 Nominated for a Peabody Award (Survivors)
2018 Nominated for National Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Film (Survivors)
2017 Winner, Best Environmental Film, Mountain Film Festival (DOTF)
2016 Winner, Audience Award, Bali International Film Festival (DOTF)
2016 Winner, Doing Good Award, Lifetree Film Festival (DOTF)
2015 Winner, National Ethics in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists (AFT/DOD)
2015 Winner, National Press Club Award for Press Criticism (AFT)
2015 Finalist, National Mirror Awards for Best Single Story Broadcast (AFT)
2014 Winner, Excellence in Journalism Innovation, Society of Professional Journalists (DOD)
2014 Winner, Best Documentary Feature, Macon Film Festival (AFT)
2014 Winner, Alliance of Women Film Journalists, EDA Award, Salem Film Fest (AFT)
2014 Nominated for Best Documentary, Cleveland Film Fest 2014 (AFT)
2014 Nominated for Best Documentary, Fargo Film Festival (AFT)
2014 Nominated for Best Documentary, Big Sky Doc Fest (AFT)
2013 Nominated for Metropolis Award, DOC NYC (AFT)
2013 Nominated for Best Documentary, Hawaii International Film Festival (AFT)
2013 Nominated for EDA Award, Sheffield Doc Fest 2013 (AFT)
2013 Nominated for Special Jury Award, Sheffield Doc/Fest 2013 (AFT)
2011 BAVC Media Maker Fellowship
2011 Selected for IFP Spotlight on Docs (AFT)
2009 CPB/PBS Annual Producers Academy at WGBH
2007 South Asian Journalists Association Award for “India: A Pound of Flesh”
2007 Carnegie Knight News21 fellowship
2006 Emmy, News Magazine Category, for CNS Special “Beliefs”
2006 IF Stone Award for Human Rights Reporting
Film Festivals
Sheffield Doc/Fest
Hamptons International Film Festival
Hawaii International Film Festival
St. Louis International Film Festival
Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival
DOC/NYC
Hollywood Film Festival
Denver Starz Film Festival
East Lansing Film Festival
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
Hot Docs Doc Soup Screening Series
Cleveland International Film Festival
Sebastopol Film Festival
Salem Film Festival
Atlanta Film Festival
Fargo Film Festival
Thessalonikki Int’l Doc Film Festival
Portland Womens Film Festival
Macon Film Festival
Garden State Film Festival
River Run International Film Festival
Kansas City Film Festival
DOXA International Film Fest Vancouver
Documentary Edge Film Festival, NZ
Sarasota Film Festival
Kuala Lumpur International Film Fest
Bend Film Festival
International Wildlife Film Festival, Missoula
San Francisco DocFest
Frozen River Film Festival
Wild & Scenic Film Festival
Sebastopol Doc Fest
POWFest Extended Festival
Through Women's Eyes
Shanghai International FF
IDFA Amsterdam
Camden International FF
CPH: DOX
Encounters International FF
FIFDA Geneva
Vermont International FF
United Nations FF
Selected Interviews, Reviews, and Press
“Well-balanced...meticulous. Portrait of disgraced reporter Jayson Blair raises tough questions about journalistic ethics and personal responsibility in the digital era."
VARIETY, Ronnie Scheib, December 13, 2013
"[Blair] is most helpful when describing how his first, minor lies opened a floodgate...suggesting that most of us often resist temptation because we believe we'll get caught."
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, John DeFore, October 15, 2013
"At a time when newspapers are struggling and resources are stretched, A Fragile Trust is a compelling reminder of the importance of paying attention to the details, no matter how small or trivial."
THE MIAMI HERALD, Rene Rodriguez, October 17, 2013
"One of the Gray Lady’s most embarrassing moments comes to complex life in this tough-minded analysis that explores issues of race, affirmative action and institutional inertia."
TIME OUT NEW YORK, Joshua Rothkopf, November 12, 2013
"Samantha Grant has a message for viewers who tune in to her documentary…Be careful about believing Jayson Blair."
LA TIMES, January 2014
"First-Rate... a thorough and balanced examination."
THE ST. LOUIS DISPATCH, Steve Leftridge, November 21, 2013
"It should be required viewing for all journalism students, and interesting discussion fodder for pros."
SOCIETY FOR PROFESSIONAL JOURNALSTS, May 2010
This thorough account of a terrible time in journalism serves as a reminder to everyone in the media to never put expediency ahead of professionalism."
THE TORONTO STAR, Peter Howell & Linda Barnard, January 2, 2014
"Great journalism & superb documentary filmmaking."
BLOG CRITICS, Carole Di Tosti, November 27, 2013
"[Grant] told radio listeners Thursday that the news media unfairly turned Blair's saga into a "race story," a "completely unfair" smearing of journalists of color."
JOURNALISMS by RICHARD PRINCE (Maynard Institute of Journalism Education), January 2014
Interview with Samantha Grant in advance of DOC NYC Premiere
Women and Hollywood, November 15, 2013
"The film, directed by the sure-handed Samantha Grant, is sharply edited and smartly written… [A] fast-paced, visually interesting documentary."
HUDAK ON HOLLYWOOD, Andres Solar, October 23, 2013
Hour-Long NPR Segment with Guest Samantha Grant discussion Journalism Ethics and A FRAGILE TRUST
NPR - St. Louis On the Air, November 2013
Interview with Filmmaker Samantha Grant for her film A FRAGILE TRUST
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, January 2014
Live National On Camera Interview with Filmmaker Samantha Grant
THE WAR ROOM, July 2013
“A film about the infamous plagiarism incident involving Jayson Blair at the New York Times.”
THE GUARDIAN UK, May 2013
“A Fragile Trust is a very interesting and tight documentary providing great insight into the world of print journalism in the digital age and of journalism ethics, a very relevant topic even now.”
NO RIPCORD, Ryan Finnigan, June 17, 2013
"Grant provides an interesting character study of Blair and his descent into shameless plagiarism”
THE ST. LOUIS AMERICAN, Kenya Vaughn, November 13, 2013
“A Fragile Trust” examines Blair’s case and the course he charted through journalism, which included attacks on his integrity going back to his college days, and the spectacle of his undoing in media nationwide. Woven through the narrative are tales of deception, drug abuse, mental illness, racism, and power struggles at the Times."
THE HEARTLAND BEAT–SPJ BLOG, David Sheets, November 21, 2013
"The portrait we have of the man is not necessarily sympathetic but it is fair...Grant does an admirable job of exploring larger issues of journalistic integrity and the climate of The New York Times."
UNSEEN FILMS BLOG, Hubert, December 3, 2013
"Samantha Grant’s A Fragile Trust is a fascinating look at the fallout from that discovery, not only for Blair’s career as a journalist but also for the Times, long seen as the most trustworthy source of, if not the last bastion of, honest news…an absorbing depiction."
THE TORONTOIST, Angelo Muredda, January 6, 2014
Supporters and Partners
