John Armstrong

John Armstrong is a documentary director/producer/writer/cinematographer who likes to work and play in remote and difficult environments. He has won three Primetime Emmys for non-fiction cinematography. The first was for the 2002 PBS NOVA expedition film Mountain of Ice about a successful ascent of Antarctica’s Vinson Massif by a new route — the piece featured mountaineer Conrad Anker and author Jon Krakauer. Armstrong has organized and led several expeditions, and has won awards for films that he directed, wrote and shot about these trips. These include the Grand Prize at Mountainfilm for Bashkaus: Hard Labor in Siberia, a whitewater river exploration film, as well as the Mountainfilm prize for Best Documentary for Curtain of Ice, a film about the first crossing of the Bering Strait by sea kayak and Eskimo umiak since the Cold War. He is also the director of Falling (Mountainfilm 2018 archival).