About Ondi

Ondi Timoner is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker whose work focuses on “impossible visionaries." She has the rare distinction of being the only person in the world to win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance twice: for DIG! (2004), about the collision of art and commerce through the eyes of two rival rock bands, and for WE LIVE IN PUBLIC (2009), which predicts the loss of privacy with life online and the advent of social media through a bunker in Manhattan over the turn of the millennium. New York’s MoMA acquired both films for its permanent collection.

Ondi’s most personal film, LAST FLIGHT HOME, about the extraordinary life and intentional death of her father, Eli Timoner, premiered at Sundance and Telluride in 2022, was acquired by MTV Documentary Films / Paramount for a theatrical release, Shortlisted for the Academy Award, nominated for the WGA Award for Best Documentary and for the Emmy for Exceptional Merit, and received The Humanitas Award for Best Documentary, the Impact Award at Hamptons Docfest, the Critics Award at Key West Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize at the Woodstock Film Festival.

Ondi’s 2023 film, “THE NEW AMERICANS: Gaming a Revolution”, is a visceral journey into the intersection of finance, media and extremism premiered at SXSW where it was acquired by Paramount, and it is currently on Netflix. That year, Ondi and her brother David premiered DIG! XX, enhanced, extended and reimagined cut of Ondi’s cult classic film DIG! in honor of its 20th anniversary - which premiered at Sundance in 2024. DIG! XX was released theatrically by Oscilloscope, Dogwoof, Madman and Nonstop and once again enjoyed sold out shows and rave reviews.

In 2024, Ondi and her wife and co-producer, Morgan Doctor, premiered THE INN BETWEEN at the Woodstock Int’l Film Festival where it was nominated for Best U.S. Documentary - after which they partnered with the LA Times. The film invites audiences inside the only hospice and recuperative care facility for the homeless in America, to discover the miracles that can happen when humans are given a chance to regain their hope, dignity and feeling of belonging.

Ondi and team also world premiered ALL GOD’S CHILDREN, about her sister Rabbi Rachel Timoner and her Temple Beth Elohim’s partnership with Antioch Black Baptist Church to stop racism and anti-semitism in Brooklyn. as the CENTERPIECE of DOC NYC where it sold out, receiving rave reviews and has been touring the country with festivals and a theatrical run throughout 2025.

In January of 2025, When Timoner's home and town of Altadena burned to the ground during the historic LA fires, Ondi reacted by making the first film about the fires, a 38 minute short called "All The Walls Came Down", which premiered at Telluride Film Festival in August 2025, just one month after the final shoot day on July 31st. Since then, the film has sold out theaters in LA and NY, raised thousands of dollars and resources for the town, and is leading a movement to stop the foreclosures on black and brown families who have been hit the hardest in the wake of this disaster. The film was awarded Best World Doc Short at Key West Film Festival and the Impact Award at Sun Valley FF and is Shortlisted for the 98th Oscars. 

Ondi and Interloper Films catalog of distinguished feature documentaries also includes: the award-winning feature COMING CLEAN (2020) about solutions to the opioid epidemic; BRAND: A Second Coming (Opening Film, SXSW 2015) about the evolution of comedian/author/activist Russell Brand; COOL IT (TIFF Premiere / Roadside Attractions 2010) about controversial economist Bjorn Lomborg and solutions to climate change; the award-winning JOIN US (2007) about mind control; the award-winning film THE NATURE OF THE BEAST (1994) about Bonnie Jean Foreshaw and the miscarriage of justice she endured; and the critically-acclaimed 10-hour nonfiction series JUNGLETOWN about building “the world’s most sustainable town” (Viceland, 2017.)

Her first scripted film, MAPPLETHORPE, which she also wrote, produced and edited, starred Matt Smith and premiered at TriBeCa Film Festival in 2018, winning the 2nd Audience Award, & nine Audience and Best Feature Awards at festivals across the world before being acquired by Samuel Goldwyn for a theatrical release and Hulu. The original version, “MAPPLETHORPE The Director’s Cut” was Official Selection for Sundance 2018, can be found on Amazon now and is the recommended version.

She is currently in post-production on ALL THAT WE ARE about the breathtaking love between 5x World Champion Triathlete, Lesley Paterson, and her brilliant psychologist husband, Simon Marshall, writers of the Oscar-winning film “All Quiet on the Western Front”, as they set about adapting Viktor Frankl's foundational manifesto on the human condition, Man's Search for Meaning, while racing to find a cure for Simon's Stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis, and also a feature “The Central Office” following the German government’s Central Office for the Investigation of Nationalist Socialist Crimes as they attempt to bring the very last living NAZI’s to justice and reconcile their troubled past.

Ondi recently won the prestigious Visionary Award for Documentary Excellence for Observational Filmmaking and the 2023 Humanitas Award. She serves as the Chair of Nonfiction for Special Projects at the DGA.