Okapi

Productions

Tom Casciato - credit Jayme Roy

Tom Casciato is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker and film & television executive. A director, writer and producer, he has created critically acclaimed nonfiction television programs that have appeared on PBS, ABC, NBC, TBS and Showtime. He has recently served as the Senior Producer of PBS NewsHour Weekend,, where he also served as a correspondent covering criminal justice, climate change and music. He continues as a Special Correspondent for PBS NewsHour, specializing in musical profiles. He is currently a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, where he will develop, produce and host a podcast series with documentary filmmakers and educators on where documentary film and journalism do and do not intersect. Previously he has directed and produced pieces starring Don Cheadle and Ian Somerhalder for the second season of the Emmy Award-winning climate-change series, Years Of Living Dangerously for Roaring Fork Films and the National Geographic channel. His 2013 film with Kathleen Hughes and Bill Moyers for the PBS Frontline series, ”Two American Families,” was called by Salon “… one of the best and most heartbreaking documentaries” of the year. Posted to YouTube in February of 2021, the film had 700,000 views in less than two weeks. Tom worked at WNET from 2006 until early 2012, serving variously as Director of News & Current Affairs and Executive Producer of two PBS series, Wide Angle (nominated for an International Documentary Association Continuing Series award) and the Emmy Award-winning Exposé: America’s Investigative Reports. At WNET he was also the Executive Producer and writer of both the New York Emmy-winning documentary “Fun City Revisited: The Lindsay Years” and the Emmy-nominated film “In The Footsteps of Marco Polo.” He has produced, directed and written many Bill Moyers documentaries, and made films as well for PBS’s Frontline series, and ABC News’ Turning Point series with Meredith Vieira. His films have also been shown on National Geographic’s Explorer series.  In 2011 he served as story consultant on the PBS documentary series Women, War and Peace, and more recently he served as Executive Producer of Development for that series’ second season with Abigail Disney and Gini Reticker. Along with Pamela Hogan, he executive produced Jeffrey Kimball’s 2012 independent film “Birders: The Central Park Effect,” which premiered at South By Southwest and was acquired by HBO. His work has received numerous awards including two national Emmys, a New York Emmy, the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton, the Peabody Award, the Dateline Club’s Society of Professional Journalists’ First Amendment Award, the Harry Chapin Media Award, the Christopher Award, and the Overseas Press Club Award. Tom is a member of Investigative Reporters & Editors. He is an International Documentary Association grantee, and has served as an adjunct advising graduate documentary students as a member of the Columbia University School of Journalism’s adjunct faculty. He also writes about music for the PBS American Masters website. He is a graduate of Stanford University.