Alisa Payne is a film and television professional whose career spans over 25 years and boasts a diverse array of credits. Her work is marked by excellence, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to pushing her craft—and the industry—forward. Her most recent projects include the Academy Award-nominated film The Perfect Neighbor and the Emmy-nominated limited series Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, which premiered at #1 on Netflix, earned 3 Emmy nominations, and won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Nonfiction Series. She also produced the Emmy Award–nominated and Academy Award–shortlisted documentary Stamped from the Beginning, based on Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s eponymous book, as well as the critically acclaimed HBO film Between the World and Me. Payne served as showrunner and co-executive producer of Harlem Ice, the Emmy-nominated five-part docuseries (Disney+/Imagine). She is producer of the forthcoming short film Women Count (Sundance/Times Studios), and executive producer of Freshman. Again. and The Black Table.

Her work has earned numerous honors, including but not limited to three Critics Choice Documentary Awards, a Grierson Award, an Independent Spirit Award, an NAACP Image Award, two Gracie Awards, and many film critics’ awards. Her work has also received multiple nominations, including six Emmy nominations, a PGA Award nomination, a Critics Choice Awards nomination, three Cinema Eye Honors nominations, a Gotham Award nomination, and more.

In 2022, Payne co-founded Message Pictures alongside filmmakers Sam Pollard and Geeta Gandbhir, a production company with a mission to create opportunities for underrepresented creatives to tell stories that matter to them.