Derek Hallquist has spent over two decades as a cinematographer, director, and the founder of Green River Pictures — an Emmy Award-winning production company based in New York.
 

His career began at 14, when footage he shot of a teachers' strike aired as Vermont's top news story, directly contributing to successful union negotiations. While still in high school, he shot his first documentary with a youth organization in Oaxaca, Mexico — work that earned him a VSAC scholarship to attend Emerson College, where he received his BA in Filmmaking in 2005.
 

After building his career in Los Angeles on shows for Discovery, Travel Channel, and TLC, he became the trusted cinematographer of acclaimed filmmaker Eugene Jarecki — shooting Freakonomics (Tribeca Film Festival, 2010), Reagan (Sundance Film Festival, 2011; Emmy Award, HBO 2012), and The House I Live In, which won the 2012 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and a Peabody Award with Independent Lens. Jarecki has said of their collaboration: "Derek Hallquist achieves the images that will make my movie cinematic — his shooting style is breathtaking."
 

In 2011, Derek directed and shot The Opiate Effect through Green River Pictures. The short documentary was adopted by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for national outreach, screened in over 50 schools, used in rehabilitation clinics across the country, and is now preserved in the Library of Congress.
 

He went on to direct and shoot Denial (2016), his feature directorial debut — a documentary interweaving climate change and personal transformation that premiered at the LA Film Festival, won multiple awards, and has been named one of the best transgender films ever made.