AprilHayes
Filmmaker + Partner, Hello Stranger Productions
April Hayes is a documentary filmmaker and creative director whose work runs the gamut from feature docs to short form episodic series to leading creative teams at global brands.
Her feature directorial debut Home Truth premiered at Lincoln Center in 2017 at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, aired nationally on PBS in 2018, and screened at film festivals around the world as well as hundreds of community organizations as part of a nationwide impact campaign with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. As a producer, recent projects include the Emmy and Sundance award winning feature documentary The Sentence (HBO, 2018); the multiple Critics Choice Award nominee Rolling Thunder: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Netflix, 2019); and Lynching in America, an immersive multimedia storytelling project with the Equal Justice Initiative.
April work in the brand space includes three years spent at Google Brand Studio, where she developed and directed nonfiction storytelling, including co-running Google's first branded documentary series "Search On” and created multiple films that won top honors at the Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, Art Directors Club, Webbys, Vimeo Staff Pick, Short of the Week, Camerimage, and Clios.
April’s latest venture is Hello Stranger Productions, three filmmakers with one shared vision: to combine award-winning, human-centered filmmaking with decades of creative leadership experience to offer streamlined, best-in-class global production capabilities for clients (without the usual bloat).