Keely Kernan is an award-winning freelance photographer and filmmaker who grew up in the Appalachian mountains. She has traveled extensively both nationally and internationally to produce work for a variety of media outlets and non-profits. Her work focuses on topics such as the environment, the natural resources that we use daily, globalization, identity, and community. She is a Flaherty Seminar Fellow, the recipient of the Princess Grace Award in film for her interactive documentary The Mississippi and a recipient of the LEF Moving Image Fund grant for the preproduction of her latest feature length documentary, UNDER THE VALLEY. The film focuses on the depleting Rio Grande aquifer in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado.
Kernan has also produced work for publications such as the Guardian and The Huffington Post, as well as, clients such as USAID West Africa Trade hub, CCTV Africa, the Global Shea Alliance, and The Indigenous Peoples Task Force. Her short films, long format work, and photography have screened and exhibited globally. These venues include the DC Environmental Film Festival, Carnegie Institution for Science, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Bright Lights Film Series partnering with MIT’s Women Take the Reel Film Festival, Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival, Rio WebFest, New Media Festival, American Conservation Film Festival, Environmental Film Festival at Yale, Environmental Film Festival Australia, Oaxaca FilmFest, The Natural Resources Defense Council, and The Gordon Parks Museum, among others.
Her Interactive documentary THE MISSISSIPPI, which takes users on a journey from the headwaters of the river to the Gulf of Mexico, won Best in Documentary Arts at the Mimesis Documentary Festival. Nominated in Best Documentary and Best Directing (Non-fiction) at the Rio WebFest. The project also screened at the 2022 SlamDance Film Festival.
Kernan is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the department of Critical Media Practices at the, University of Colorado, Boulder.
KeelyKernan@gmail.com / 717-552-3072
