Taylor Hensel is an award-winning Oklahoma-based director, producer, and writer. She is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her work has been seen in festivals globally like Sundance, ImagineNative, and HotDocs among others.

Taylor is a 2022 IllumiNative Producer Fellow in partnership with Netflix. She is also the 2023 Sundance Native Labs Artist in Residence while in script development for her short film Escape to Here. She is currently a Series Producer on Season 2 of Reciprocity Project which is currently in post-production and an Executive Producer on the feature documentary Bad River set to premiere March 15, 2024

She has worked on the camera crew of Seasons 2 and 3 of the FX series, Reservation Dogs, and as a series producer on Seasons 1 of Reciprocity Project which won a 2023 Anthem Award, a regional California Emmy, and was nominated in two categories at the 2022 International Documentary Association Awards for Best Short Documentary ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught)  and for Best Short-Form Series (Reciprocity Project Series).

She has worked as a director and producer with the United States Department of the Interior, the Humane Society of the United States, and Nia Tero Foundation. Previously, Taylor directed the narrative short film, Zibi Yajdan (2019) and the short documentary Native and American (2017).

CRITCAL ACCLAIM AND SCREENINGS