Soledad O’Brien Productions is a multi-platform media production company that creates gritty, authentic and untold stories of marginalized communities living at the crossroads of friction over race, class, progress and access.

Celebrated journalist, documentarian and thought leader Soledad O’Brien founded SO’B Productions in 2013 to create empowering content on the very issues Soledad has explored throughout her career. With an emphasis on character-driven storytelling,  SO'B digs into crime and conflict, community and common ground, sports and social issues, race and radical changes to culture, business and politics  - authentic stories told by authentic voices. SO’B Productions produces award-winning documentaries, reporter-driven stories, branded content, podcasts and impactful events. 

SO’B has produced documentaries for HBO, Netflix, PBS, Discovery, Peacock, Scripps, Paramount Plus, including two with Oscar-nominations, an Independent Spirit Award, 5 Critics Choice Awards, the Peabody, and several others. We also have produced podcast series for Luminary, Quake, Audible and I Heart , including Who Killed JFK with Rob Reiner which debuted at #1 on Apple. We produced stories and content for Matter of Face w/ Soledad O’Brien, a weekly political magazine show that aired for 10 years, winning several Emmys and landing Soledad in the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. The production company won best national long-form reporting on education two years in a row for documentaries released by Time and CBS. Our four-walled branded content includes a documentary short series for P&G’s Girls Can campaign and My Black is Beautiful campaign, a series for Genworth on the cost of care, work for AARP in Haiti, for American Family Insurance on celebrity lives, and a documentary on the hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico for Entertainment Industries Foundation, among others. We have also created live televised events for PBS, XQ Institute, Google, and others.

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Read Soledad's Story

The Team

  • Rose Arce, Vice President and Executive Producer, has traveled the world producing groundbreaking films, news coverage, books and podcasts and with Soledad O’Brien since 2005. She leads SO’Bs development and production.

    A Pulitzer Prize and four-time Emmy Award-winning journalist and author, she has spearheaded award-winning and Oscar nominated documentary films, shorts, series and podcasts for SO’B’s clients, including Netflix, HBO, and CBS/Paramount, NBC/Peacock, and PBS, and Podcast Networks like IHeart, Audible and Luminary. She developed The Devil is Busy (HBO, 2025), which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film, and was an EP of The Perfect Neighbor (Netflix 2025) which premiered at Sundance and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film. She is Director of War on La Radio, a political news documentary reported by Soledad O’Brien (“In Real Life” Documentaries on Scripps TV 2024) which won 4 Silver Tellys, and produced The End of Affirmative Action (CBS/Paramount + 2024) which won a Gold Telly for Social Impact and Best Education documentary from EWA. She also developed, then directed Pandemic in Seattle (Hearst and PBS World Channel 2021) winner of the Silver Telly for directing. Other credits include Hungry to Learn, (Yahoo 2019), and for CNN: Black and Blue, Babies Behind Bars, Her Name was Steven, Rescued and episodes of the Black in America and Latino in America series.  

    Arce spent 15 years at CNN reporting breaking news around the world, including being one of the few on-air reporters live from Ground Zero while the 9/11 attacks unfolded, for which she received special recognition from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences,, then was recognized by them again for reporting on the war in Afghanistan. Her work in Haiti, Chile and the Congo was also lauded. Previously she had been a producer at CBS News and WCBS, where she won two Emmys for her investigative reports on abortion and policing. She began her career as a print reporter, covering crime for the NY Daily News and later New York Newsday where she shared the Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting with her colleagues. 

    She is the author or co-author of four books, including the Next Big Story and Latino in America with Soledad O’Brien and has taught graduate school-level journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (now Craig Newmark). She has worked for diversity in media for decades through her leadership roles with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Lesbian Gay Journalists Association, San Francisco State University, Unity: Journalists of Color, and the Radio Television News Directors Association. She is a graduate of Barnard College/Columbia University and lives in New York with her partner and daughter.

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  • Oscar Nomination
    Best Documentary Short Film
    The Devil is Busy


  • Oscar Nomination
    Best Documentary Feature Film
    The Perfect Neighbor


  • George Foster Peabody Award Documentary Film
    The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks


  • Independent Spirit Award
    Best New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series
    Black and Missing (HBO)


  • Alfred I. duPont Award
    Best Reporting
    Soledad O’Brien/Southeast Asia Tsunami


  • George Foster Peabody Award
    Coverage of Hurricane Katrina
    Soledad O’Brien, Correspondent / Anchor


  • Society of Professional Journalists
    Best Investigative Reporting
    Rose Arce


  • Edward R. Murrow Award / RTDNA-UNITY Award
    Latino in America (2009)
    Soledad O’Brien, CNN reporter
    Rose Arce, CNN Senior Producer


  • Pulitzer Prize
    Spot News Reporting
    Rose Arce/NY Newsday Staff


Our Favorites

  • Geeta Gandbhir first worked with SO’B in 2019 when she directed Hungry to Learn. She was Director and Showrunner for our Independent Spirit award-winning series Black and Missing on HBO, Director of Oscar-nominated films The Perfect Neighbor on Netflix and The Devil is Busy on HBO, and Executive Producer of the She Was First Series for PBS.

    She embarked on her career under the tutelage of Spike Lee and Sam Pollard, with whom she now runs her own production company Message Pics. “The Perfect Neighbor” won her the 2025 Sundance US Documentary Directing Award, Cinema Eye Best Direction Award, Independent Spirit Best Documentary Award, the Dorian Award for Documentary of the Year, the African American Film Critics’ Association Winner, and was an NAACP Image Nominee for Outstanding Documentary Film, The Devil is Busy, with Christalyn Hampton, won the Jury Award at the River Run Film Festival and Audience Awards at Full Frame, Pan African Film Festival, Shorts Fest, the Black Reel Award and a Gold Telly. She also directed one part of 

    “Katrina: Come Hell and High Water” for Netflix, "Reclaimed" for PBS, and the Oscar Shortlisted film “How We Get Free” for HBO. Additional credits include the series "Born in Synanon" for Paramount, the series "Eyes on the Prize" for HBO, the Emmy-winning doc "Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power," "Call Center Blues," with Topic Studios which was shortlisted for the 2021 Academy Awards, an episode of Peabody winner,  Why We Hate" for Discovery, and "I Am Evidence" for HBO which won a 2019 Emmy, DuPont Award, and ATAS Award. Her film "Armed with Faith" for PBS also won a 2019 News and Documentary Emmy, an episode of the Netflix series "The Rapture," focusing on rap artist Rapsody, "Prison Dogs," which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, and "A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers," for PBS. 

  • Yoruba Richen directed The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks for SO’B which released on Peacock and won a Peabody, a Gracie and was honored by the Television Academy. Yoruba was awarded the Trailblazer award by Black Public Media.  Her work has been featured on multiple outlets, including Netflix, HBO, MSNBC, Peacock, FX/Hulu and PBS. Her work includes the Emmy-nominated films American Reckoning, How It Feels to Be Free; The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show and Green Book: Guide to Freedom.  Her film, The Killing of Breonna Taylor won an NAACP Image Award.  She co-directed The Fall of Diddy for HBO Max and  ID and her latest film, FREE JOAN LITTLE will premiere on PBS next year.  Yoruba is the Founding Director of the Documentary Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

  • Christalyn Hampton made her directorial debut co-directing the HBO documentary short The Devil Is Busy for SO’B Productions alongside Geeta Gandbhir, earning an Academy Award nomination and a Black Reel Award. She also directed Soledad O’Brien’s 6-part PBS documentary series focusing on women in the arts. She Was First. Her work as both director and producer brings culturally significant stories to the screen with depth, nuance, and emotional resonance.  She was also a producer on SO’B’s Peacock film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, which earned a Peabody Award, a Gracie Award, and Television Academy Honors.  

    Her additional credits include Born in Synanon, Rise and Rebuild: A Tale of Three Cities, and Maxine's Baby: The Tyler Perry Story. Across her work with Soledad O’Brien Productions and other collaborators, Hampton has built a reputation for crafting compelling nonfiction stories that illuminate history, culture, and social change.

  • Viridiana is a director and editor who won the ACE Eddie, a Cinema Eye, and the Critic Choice Documentary award for best Editing in 2026 for THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR which was produced by SO’B, Message Pics and Park Pictures. The Critics Choice Association also nominated her for the larger Critics Choice Awards making her the first documentary editor to ever compete against major fiction motion pictures. 

    Viridiana wants to create films that push storytelling into new forms, always rooted in personal, character-driven narratives that shape not only our imaginations but what we want our world to look like. Her directorial debut was BORN TO PLAY which premiered on ESPN and ABC in 2020 and most recently she co-directed the feature documentary JEAN-MICHEL premiering at Tribeca Film Festival 2026.

    She is editor of the Emmy-winning documentary THE SENTENCE, I AM EVIDENCE, LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER, and THROUGH OUR EYES: APART, Sony Pictures Classic’s CARLOS, the ESPN 30 for 30: BREAKAWAY and QUEER FUTURES series.

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