Bryan Fogel is an American film director, producer, author, playwright, speaker and human rights activist, best known for the 2017 documentary Icarus, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018. The New York Times described Fogel's film Icarus as "Illuminating" and Variety magazine called it as "A Game Changing Documentary." Icarus premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award "The Orwell Award" and the first ever "Audience Choice" Award of Sundance Film Festival London. The film was acquired in a historic $5 million sale by Netflix and launched globally on August 4, 2017 and won its first Feature Documentary Oscar with Icarus. The evidence brought forward in Icarus through Russian whistle-blower Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, was instrumental in the Olympic Committee's banning of Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. Fogel most recently has directed and produced the 2020 American documentary film The Dissident that follows the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia's effort to control international dissent. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2020. It is scheduled to be released on December 18, 2020, by Briarcliff Entertainment. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.
