Jamila Paksima

Jamila Paksima is an award winning independent documentary filmmaker, creative director, and former Pew Journalism Fellow based in Pennsylvania. She has received two Emmy nominations, 1st prize for Domestic Television Broadcast - RFK Journalism Award 2000, The Silver Screen Award, Society of Professional Journalists-2000 best series investigative reporting, the CINE 2003 Golden Eagle Award for her film on child rape and AIDS in South Africa, the 2008-2009 OMMA award for Excellence in Online Video and Animation for Babycenter.com, and a Webby award. For 14 years, Jamila has been the Executive Producer and Creative Director at Paksima Productions, Inc., an independent film and video production company she owns and operates. She has directed international advertising campaign videos for IMS Health's IPO offering, commercials for DePuy/Synthes, over 100 educational videos and animation clips for Babycenter.com, and produced a series of fourteen short documentary films in China, South Africa, Columbia, Argentina, and across the United States for Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Johnson &Johnson. Prior to owning her own production company, Jamila had an 11-year-long career working as a journalist and producer on NBC News and Dateline NBC. Jamila has produced documentaries for PBS, MSNBC, and the Discovery Channel. In 2003, she was chosen to document the journey of Bill Gates Sr. and former president Jimmy Carter as they met with seven African leaders to urge them to examine and face the crisis of the HIV pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa. Jamila has interviewed former presidents Nelson Mandela, Mohammad Khatami, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among others.