Olivier Sarbil, born in Corsica, is a New York–based filmmaker and two-time Emmy®-winning cinematographer whose work moves between documentary and narrative cinema. Over the past two decades, he has filmed extensively across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, North America, and Asia, creating a body of work defined by a visceral and intimate visual language.

After leaving university at 21, Sarbil joined an elite French paratrooper regiment. Posted to Rwanda in 1993, he was deeply affected by the genocide. It wasn’t an overnight transformation, but it led Sarbil to lay down arms and pick up a camera. A decade later, he turned his lens on Southeast Asia, becoming known for his dark, visceral style and his ability to gain intimate access to the most difficult of subjects — from the long-running ethnic conflicts in Myanmar to the violent street protests between Thailand’s Red Shirts and the government.

In 2011, Sarbil was severely wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade while filming the civil war in Libya. He returned to filming within the year, working from the frontlines of the war in Syria and its spillover into Lebanon and Jordan, and was in Gaza during the 2012 war with Israel. He went on to accompany French troops fighting jihadists in Mali, film the interethnic violence in the Central African Republic, and document the war in eastern Ukraine from 2014 to 2015, following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

In 2016–2017, during the nine-month battle for Mosul, Sarbil worked alone, embedded on the front line with a unit of young Iraqi Special Forces leading the fight against ISIS. The resulting film, MOSUL, which he directed and filmed, aired on PBS FRONTLINE and won the Emmy® for Outstanding Cinematography and the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton, along with a BAFTA nomination. The Guardian called it “insanely brave, but also intimate and human.”

For his first feature, ‘ON THE PRESIDENT’S ORDERS’ (2018), Sarbil co-directed and filmed a chilling portrait of the Philippine drug war. Praised for its clarity of vision, striking images, and unique access, the film earned an Emmy® nomination for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, with Variety describing it as “a wholly cinematic, sensory experience, with straight-ahead reportage electrified by glaring streetlights and a panicked urban wall of sound.” The film also won the Royal Television Society Award for Cinematography.

From 2020 to 2021, including six months embedded with forward-deployed U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan, Sarbil served as cinematographer on RETROGRADE. The film chronicles the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and won the Emmy® for Outstanding Cinematography.

From 2022 to 2024, Sarbil directed and filmed VIKTOR, produced by Academy Award®–nominated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. A deeply intimate portrait of a Deaf person’s experience of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was selected for the prestigious Platform Prize programme, and earned Cinema Eye Honors nominations for Cinematography and Sound Design. RogerEbert.com called it “a truly singular experience worthy of its adulation.” VIKTOR is streaming on MUBI in the US and Canada.