Awards

Jeff Orlowski-Yang is the Founder and President of Exposure Labs, a film and impact production studio that uses stories to change the world. Most recently, he directed the hit documentary The Social Dilemma (2020), which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for seven primetime Emmy awards, winning two. The film, watched by 38 million households in just its first month on Netflix, helped catapult exploitative technology into the public consciousness and contributed to major design and regulatory changes.

Previously, Orlowski-Yang was the director, producer and cinematographer of the award-winning documentaries Chasing Coral (2017) and Chasing Ice (2012). Chasing Ice premiered at Sundance in 2012, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song, and won an Emmy for Outstanding Nature Programming. Chasing Coral premiered at Sundance in 2017, where it received the U.S. Documentary Award, and was released globally on Netflix later that year. Chasing Coral went on to win a Peabody award in 2018. Both films have screened around the globe, from Congress to the United Nations, and received many other awards and accolades, including being shortlisted for Academy Awards and winning two DocHi5 Impact Awards for excellence in filmmaking and significant social impact. In addition to his feature films, Orlowski-Yang directed and produced Chasing Coral: The VR Experience (2017), directed VICE’s Living with Jaguars 360° film (2018), and was a producer on the award-winning feature documentary Frame By Frame (2015). Orlowski-Yang also supports other filmmakers from concept to impact campaign as an executive producer and mentor. 

Orlowski-Yang has been widely recognized for his contributions to social impact storytelling, including winning the 2017 Champion of the Earth Award, the UN's highest environmental honor, and becoming the inaugural Sundance Discovery Impact Fellow for environmental filmmaking in 2016. Orlowski-Yang is represented by United Talent Agency and has traveled on tour representing the Sundance Institute, President Obama's Committee for the Arts and Humanities, and the National Endowment of the Arts, among many other speaking and press engagements. He serves on the boards of Green 2.0 and Netflix’s Sustainability Advisory Group.

Orlowski-Yang lives in Boulder, Colorado, and in his spare time you can find him mountain biking, paragliding, bladesmithing, camping, overlanding, rock climbing, making music, and cooking. He holds two Guinness Book World Records.