Justin Weinrich is an award-winning nonfiction filmmaker and visual anthropologist whose work focuses on the complicated balance between humanity, other animal species, and the environment. He has produced and directed documentary projects for National Geographic, The Smithsonian Institute, HBO, PBS, Discovery, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and many others.

In 2015 Justin started Elephant Lake, an independent production company with a mission to explore unique ethnographic and scientific perspectives of environmental and animal rights issues through impact-driven film and new media projects. Elephant Lake’s first film was a short documentary Lab Rat #31415 (2016), which Justin made in collaboration with MIT’s School of Cognitive Research. This 8-minute film explores the world from the perspective of a research animal, and the ethical price that is paid for the knowledge gained in laboratories. Lab Rat #31415 premiered at the 2017 MindField Film Festival in Los Angeles, where it received the award for Best Documentary Short.

Elephant Lake’s second project, the feature documentary The Burning Field (2018), is an immersive portrait of life in an environmental wasteland. It follows four young Ghanaians in Agbogbloshie, the largest e-waste dump on earth. Told entirely from their perspectives and in their own words, verité sequences capture telling moments from lives spent dismantling and burning electronic appliances illegally dumped there from around the world. The Burning Field premiered at the 2019 CinemAmbiente Festival in Torino, Italy (the largest environmental film festival in Europe), where it received the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. The Burning Field is now available in North America through Collective Eye Films, and internationally through LGI Media.