Samantha Curley
Samantha Curley is an award-winning documentary film producer and creative entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. She is the Co-Founder of Level Ground, which is both a 501(c)3 nonprofit artist collective and a collaboratively run production company. In the twelve years since she founded Level Ground, she’s produced hundreds of films, gallery shows, and multimedia projects while bolstering collaboration, experimentation, and community with underrepresented artists.
Her most recent film UNION (dir. Stephen Maing, Brett Story) won a Special Jury Award for The Art of Change at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. She also produced FRAMING AGNES (dir. Chase Joynt) which won the NEXT Innovator Award and Audience Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and the 2023 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary. She’s held fellowships with the Producers Guild of America (2022), NBCU Original Voices (2022), and Impact Partners (2023).
In 2023, she received a Cali Catalyst grant awarded to California changemakers creating tangible impact within the arts and culture sector, shifting power and influence to historically underrepresented voices. In 2024, she was named to DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 list which spotlights young creatives that are making an impact on the field of documentary. And in 2025 she won a Cinema Eye Honors award for Outstanding Achievement in Production for her work on UNION.