Jill Freidberg is a documentary filmmaker, sound artist, oral historian, public artist, educator, and researcher.

My current projects include Wa Na Wari, a center for Black art and stories, in Seattle's Central District, where I co-direct the Seattle Black Spatial Histories Institute; and the Shelf Life Community Story project, an oral history collective that uses public art, podcasts, and now a book to interrupt the narratives of erasure that accompany gentrification and displacement.

I’m also the Digital Media Editor at HistoryLink, where I track down historic images to illustrate the stories of Washington State’s history.

My public art interventions have included video projections inside the Battery Street Tunnel, a story booth at the Promenade Shopping Center, a public art living room for Seattle Public Utilities, and other shenanigans. I have edited, directed, shot, and/or produced five award-winning feature-length documentaries, three national PBS series, countless documentary shorts, and a handful of radio features. My work includes the groundbreaking This is What Democracy Looks Like and Sandy Cioffi's searing documentary, Sweet Crude. I produced short films for the Seattle Channel’s Community Stories series for years, including my personal favorites Age Up and Hidmo Means Home.

Between 2003 and 2008, I worked primarily in southern Mexico, producing, directing, and editing the  award-winning documentaries, Granito de Arena and A Little Bit of So Much Truth. ​It was during this time that I got to interview my favorite author, the late Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. 

I’m Affiliate Faculty at University of Washington Bothell, where I sometimes teaches documentary film production, oral history, and audio storytelling. Prior to joining the University of Washington, I taught in the Film and Video Communications program at Seattle Central Community College, where I instructed second-year students in directing, production, story development, writing, and editing.

I got my BA in Cultural Anthropology, with a minor in Environmental Studies, from the University of Oregon (1990) and a Certificate of Excellence in Film Production from the Vancouver Film School (1994). I recently completed the Marine Education & Research Society's 2021 Marine Naturalist Certificate Program, as well as the Washington State Teaching Artist Training Lab, and the Orca Behavior Institute’s Student Training as Research Scientists year-long institute, learning how to analyze and visualize data through the study of Bigg’s Killer Whales.

When I’m not making films, trouble, or art, I experiment with underwater sound recording, work in my garden, research the history of my 125-year-old house, ride the ferry, nap with my dogs, visit the archives, and watch birds. I am interested in how artists and scientists can work together to solve the climate crisis, so lately I’ve been learning from scientists.