Chris Newhard
Pennsylvania-born filmmaker Chris Newhard has spent the last 16 years telling stories across the United States, Central America, Africa, and Europe. With roots in fine art, design, and performance, his work is drawn to the imperfect, complicated, and deeply human, often finding beauty and humor in the darker corners of the human experience.
His career has moved fluidly between narrative film, documentary, comedy, commercial work, and music. Chris was a creative force behind Gilly and Keeves, helping shape the distinct cinematic world of the cult comedy series alongside John McKeever and Shane Gillis. His longtime collaboration with McKeever has spanned numerous projects over the years, including work on Shane Gillis’ Netflix comedy special Beautiful Dogs. Across comedy, music, film, and commercial projects, Chris’ work has amassed more than 500 million views online.
As a music video director, Chris has collaborated with artists including Sia, Maroon 5, Train, Jessie J, Chevelle, Sirah, Grayscale, and American Authors. That range of experience has shaped a filmmaking style that is cinematic without feeling manufactured, polished without losing its humanity, and equally at home finding the emotion in a documentary or the absurdity in a comedy.
His first documentary, Are You Lonely (2012), followed American folk band The End of America into New York’s Adirondack Mountains, where the band traveled by canoe to a remote island to write and record. In 2013, Chris traveled to South Africa to work on a documentary about the Peace Train, the groundbreaking 500-voice multiracial band and youth choir that toured the country by rail during apartheid. Later that year, he crossed the United States on tour with Grammy-winning band Train.
Narrative filmmaking has remained equally central to his work. His film school thesis, Pearl (2010), explored love in the face of terminal illness and helped establish many of the themes that continue to define his filmmaking. His short film Self Tape (2023) turned its lens toward the anxiety, vulnerability, and strange intimacy of auditioning in the modern entertainment industry.
Most recently, Chris co-directed the documentary Little Empty Boxes alongside Max Lugavere, an intimate examination of dementia and the realities of watching someone you love begin to disappear.
Whether working with actors, comedians, musicians, documentary subjects, or global brands, Chris approaches filmmaking with the same instinct that has guided him since he first picked up a camera: search for the imperfect frame, find the truth inside it, and make it beautiful without polishing away what made it human.