Message Pictures, founded by Sam Pollard, Geeta Gandbhir, and Alisa Payne, is dedicated to cutting-edge storytelling by and about BIPOC and underrepresented communities.
We push artistic boundaries in both scripted and non-fiction content, recognizing the importance of diverse perspectives.
With our collective experience, we curate premium projects that prioritize diversity, equity, and access for all audiences.
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Sam Pollard
Director/Producer
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Sam Pollard is a renowned film and television editor, documentary producer, and director. Between 1990 and 2010, he collaborated with Spike Lee on various projects, including editing several films such as Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, and Bamboozled. Their documentary work together includes Four Little Girls and When The Levees Broke, which earned critical acclaim and awards. He recently released Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, which premiered at #1 on Netflix, earned 3 Emmy nominations, and won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Nonfiction Series.
Since 2012, Pollard has focused on producing and directing. He created documentaries like Slavery By Another Name for PBS, August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand for American Masters, and Two Trains Runnin’, which premiered at the Full Frame Film Festival. He's also worked on projects like Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me and the series Why We Hate for The Discovery Channel.
In 2020, Pollard received the International Documentary Association’s first Career Achievement Award. The following year, Film at Lincoln Center honored him as one of "cinema’s most dedicated chroniclers of the Black experience in America." He also contributed as a director to the HBO series Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children and completed MLK/FBI. Pollard served as an executive producer on The Perfect Neighbor which premiered at Sundance in 2025. Recently, he formed Message Pictures with collaborators Geeta Gandbhir and Alisa Payne, focusing on sharing stories that amplify unheard voices and shed light on important issues.
​​Geeta Gandbhir
Filmmaker
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Geeta Gandbhir is an award-winning filmmaker and co-founder of Message Pictures. In 2026, she made history by becoming the first woman director nominated for two Oscars in different categories in the same year. Recent credits include The Perfect Neighbor, which received an Oscar nomination in 2026, the series “Katrina: Come Hell and High Water” for Netflix which won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Nonfiction Series and was nominated for 3 Emmy Awards, and the short "The Devil is Busy" for HBO that was nominated for a 2026 Oscar.
Her credits also include"Reclaimed" for Sesame Workshop, the Oscar-shortlisted film “How We Get Free” for HBO, the series "Born in Synanon" for Paramount, and the series "Eyes on the Prize" For HBO, and the feature documentary Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, which was nominated for the 2022 Critics Choice Award, won a 2023 SIMA Award, and won a 2023 Emmy Award. She directed and was the showrunner for the series "Black and Missing" for HBO, which won a 2022 NAACP Award for Best Directing, a 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Series, a 2022 ATAS Honors Award, and a Cinema Eye Honors for Best Series. She directed the film "Apart," with Rudy Valdez for HBO Max which won a 2022 Emmy Award.​​
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Alisa Payne
Producer
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Alisa Payne is a film and Television professional whose career spans over 25 years and boasts a diverse array of credits. Her work is marked by excellence, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to pushing her craft - and the industry - forward. Her most recent projects include the Academy Award nominated film The Perfect Neighbor and the Emmy-nominated limited series Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, which premiered at #1 on Netflix, earned 3 Emmy nominations, and won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Nonfiction Series. She also produced the Emmy Award–nominated and Academy Award–shortlisted documentary Stamped from the Beginning, based on Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s eponymous book, as well as the critically acclaimed HBO film Between the World and Me.
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Payne served as showrunner and co-executive producer of Harlem Ice, the Emmy nominated five-part docuseries (Disney+/Imagine). She is producer of the forthcoming short film Women Count (Sundance/Times Studios), and executive producer of Freshman. Again. and The Black Table.
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​Her work has earned numerous honors, including but not limited to, three Critics Choice Documentary Awards, a Grierson Award, an Independent Spirt Award, an NAACP Image Award, two Gracie Awards, and many film critics’ awards. Her work has also received multiple nominations, including six Emmy nominations, a PGA Award nomination, a Critics Choice Awards nomination, three Cinema Eye Honor nominations, a Gotham Award nomination and more.​​​
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In 2022 Payne co-founded Message Pictures alongside filmmakers Sam Pollard and Geeta Gandbhir, a production company with a mission to create opportunities for underrepresented creatives to tell stories that matter to them.
Nikon Kwantu
Animation Producer & Head of Development
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For over two decades, Nikon Kwantu has been a multimedia, film, and animation producer. He
is a producer on the Oscar-nominated documentary feature The Perfect Neighbor. He produced the animation for the documentary, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power.
Before his film work, he was also the animation producer on Steven Colbert’s Washingtonia, an animatedfeature for Comedy Central, as well as Colbert’s Our Cartoon President, for Showtime. He has also been an animation and digital producer for Sesame Workshop, Late Night Cartoons, Flicker Lab, Animation Collective, Animagic, Hornet Inc., and JWT ad agency. Nikon also served as the animation producer for Whoopi Goldberg Presents Mom’s Mabley and TED TALKS LIVE Short -Unconscious Bias.
Crystal Stoute
Production Supervisor/Associate Producer
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Crystal C. Stoute is an experienced production manager in documentary film and series, known for her steady leadership on complex, high-impact projects. She began her career interning for The Wendy Williams Radio Show in 2005, later moving into casting and production management at the BUK Agency.
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Her body of work includes Emmy-nominated Harlem Ice, a five-part documentary series for Disney+ that premiered in February 2025, and Emmy-nominated Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, a three-part series for Netflix on which she served as Associate Producer and Field Producer, and which later rose to become the #1 documentary on Netflix, was nominated for 3 Emmys, and won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Nonfiction Series. Her most recent release, Oscar-nominated The Perfect Neighbor, premiered in 2025 and became the #1 documentary on Netflix.
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Rooted in community and driven by rhythm, resilience, and story, Crystal thrives in fast-paced environments and is deeply committed to authentic, people-centered storytelling.
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She lives in New York City, where she enjoys time with her family, staying connected to her community, and carrying the spirit of the Caribbean with her in both life and work.
Butch Robinson
Executive-in-Charge
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Butch Robinson is a veteran filmmaker with film and television production management credits for content created for various entities including HBO, Netflix, Universal, Disney, Paramount, ABC, NBC, Google, NBA, NFL, MLB, ESPN, FOX Sports, SONY and PBS. His career as a producer and line producer spans over three decades and includes media production company stewardship and management of documentary, feature film, commercial, and branded content projects shot all over the US and the world.
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More recently he partnered with producer Alisa Payne to complete “Stamped From The Beginning”, a documentary project shortlisted for the Academy Award. Following the #1 premiere and successful run on Netflix he partnered with Payne again for “Katrina: Come Hell And High Water”. The project reunited him with filmmakers Sam Pollard, Geeta Gandbhir and Spike Lee all of whom crafted 2005’s foundational Hurricane Katrina documentary, “When The Levees Broke”. The series update of post-Katrina New Orleans debuted at #1 on Netflix, garnered considerable critical acclaim as well as three Emmy nominations for Best Social Justice Documentary, Best Direction and Best Editing, and won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Nonfiction Series. Robinson is also honored to be part of the production team for The Perfect Neighbor, the astounding multiple award winning, Academy award nominated documentary directed by Geeta and produced by Nikon and Alisa.
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Professional recognition and accolades for Robinson’s projects include the Peabody, Primetime Emmy, the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti Doc Prize, the NAACP Image Award, CLIO, Grierson, Mobius, POLK, Belding, ANDY, Black Reel Award, AAFCA andvarious film festival awards.
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Butch has always been fortunate to work with artists, creatives and studios who understand and value the importance of presenting stories from across the diaspora. Message Pictures is the entity perfectly aligned for this work at this moment in time.
Sarika Joglekar
Administrative Assistant/Associate Producer
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Sarika is an Executive Assistant and Associate Producer at Message Pictures. Previously, Sarika was Associate Producer at Criterion Collection in New York City, and Programming Coordinator at Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in Atlanta. She has a decade of experience in the film industry, and is skilled in research, event management, and operations for both linear and OTT Services in media.
She holds a BBA from Emory University specializing in Marketing and an MA in Film and Moving Image Studies from Concordia University in Montréal, where she was recipient of 3 merit-based scholarships and awards. She joined Message Pictures in 2025 to support their invaluable work in sharing stories that amplify unheard voices and shed light on vital
issues.
Gauri Nema
Executive Assistant/Associate Producer​​​
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Gauri Nema is an emerging documentary filmmaker and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. Growing up between New Delhi and the United States, supporting underrepresented stories and working across cultures is central to her practice. She is especially drawn to expansive nonfiction and hybrid projects that challenge traditional forms to evoke long-lasting impact.
After graduating from Boston University’s film program, she built her initial industry experience through internships at National Geographic Documentary Films and with Academy Award-nominated director Cynthia Wade. She has since supported Academy Award-nominated directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh as an Assistant Director across development and production, including on an upcoming feature documentary supported by Sundance, Impact Partners, and Chicken & Egg. Gauri also administratively assisted Academy Award-winning producer Dan Cogan and Academy Award-nominated director Liz Garbus at Story Syndicate, where she gained firsthand insight into the operational processes behind a premium documentary and
scripted production company. She currently works as an Executive Assistant and Associate Producer at Message Pictures, helmed by director and producers Geeta Gandbhir, Alisa Payne, and Sam Pollard.
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Outside of work, she independently produces and directs, and enjoys reading, watching third cinema, and traveling.
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