Art & Krimes by Krimes

Directed By Alysa Nahmias

While locked-up for six years in federal prison, artist Jesse Krimes secretly creates monumental works of art.

  • ABOUT
  • BIO
  • AWARDS
  • CREDITS

While locked-up for six years in federal prison, artist Jesse Krimes secretly creates monumental works of art—including an astonishing 40-foot mural made with prison bed sheets, hair gel, and newspaper. He smuggles out each panel piece-by-piece with the help of fellow artists, only seeing the mural in totality upon coming home. As Jesse's work captures the art world's attention, he struggles to adjust to life outside, living with the threat that any misstep will trigger a life sentence.

Alysa Nahmias is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of AJNA, a Los Angeles-based production company. She directed the forthcoming Cookie Queens (2026) and the Emmy-winning feature documentary Art & Krimes by Krimes (2022, MTV Documentary Films / Paramount+). Her other directing credits include The New Bauhaus (2019) about visionary artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and her debut feature Unfinished Spaces which won a 2012 Independent Spirit Award and numerous festival prizes, was broadcast on Netflix and PBS, and was selected for Sundance Film Forward. Alysa's producing credits include Wildcat (dir. Melissa Lesh & Trevor Beck Frost) for Amazon Studios in association with 30WEST; the 2017 Sundance Jury Award-winning and Academy Award Shortlisted Unrest (dir. Jennifer Brea, Netflix and ITVS - Independent Lens); What We Left Unfinished (dir. Mariam Ghani, 2019 Berlinale, SFFILM, Dekanalog and Criterion); Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq (dir. Nancy Buirski, creative advisor Martin Scorsese, 2013 New York Film Festival, Berlinale, PBS American Masters / Kino Lorber); and the fiction feature No Light and No Land Anywhere (dir. Amber Sealey, executive producer Miranda July, 2016 Jury Award winner, LA Film Festival). Her work has been exhibited at Telluride, Sundance, Berlinale, the Venice Biennale and MoMA. She is a founding member of FWD-Doc as an active ally for disabled filmmakers, a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA), the Television Academy, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Alysa lives in Los Angeles with her husband, graphic designer Rob Carmichael, their two children, and one kitten.

Emmy Award - Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary - 2023

Director, Producer, Writer - Alysa Nahmias

Producer - Amanda Spain

Producer - Benjamin Murray

Editor, Writer - Miranda Yousef

Composer - Amanda Jones