BIOGRAPHY

Karim López is an Emmy award-winning editor and director with over 30 credits in television, documentary and narrative film.

Over the years, his work has received various accolades, including: an Emmy for Outstanding Editing, a duPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Journalism, a John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award, a Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Limited Doc Series, and the Special Jury Prize for Comedy at the 2016 L.A. Film Festival. He edited and produced the feature documentary, Garden of the Peaceful Dragon, recipient of the Best Documentary award at the 2017 Harlem International Film Festival.

In 2021 Karim edited the first episode of the Showtime documentary series, The Lincoln Project, directed by Fisher Stevens (The Tiger King, Palmer), and Karim Amer (The Great Hack, The Vow), which follows the infamous group of former Republicans who dedicated themselves to defeating Donald Trump in 2020. The series was nominated for a 2022 Critics Choice Award for Best Limited Doc Series.

In 2020 he cut two episodes on the acclaimed HBO documentary series, The Vow, directed by Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated directors, Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer (The Square, The Great Hack, Control Room), which made many 2020 year-end ‘Best of’ lists for TV and Documentary including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, and Variety. The New York Times called it “irresistible… an impressive and even transfixing achievement.”

Karim edited the feature-length documentary, The Shockwave, about the 2020 shipping terminal explosion in Beirut and the governmental corruption and negligence which led to the blast. The doc received a 2022 duPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Journalism and two News and Doc Emmy awards. Karim won an Emmy for Outstanding Editing.

The narrative feature, En el Séptimo Día (On the Seventh Day), which Karim edited with acclaimed writer-director, Jim McKay (Girlstown, Our Song), is about a week-in-the-life of an undocumented Mexican immigrant in New York City. Septimo received widespread critical praise. It was a New York Times Critics’ Pick and included on Variety’s “Best Films of 2018, so far” list by Owen Gleiberman (“Captivating. Exquisitely crafted. Supremely confident.”) It went on to win the John Cassavetes Award at the 2019 Independent Spirit Awards.

He edited the narrative feature, Chee and T (directed by Tanuj Chopra, Punching at the Sun) which won a Special Jury Prize for Comedy at the 2016 L.A. Film Festival.

Karim’s narrative short, The Last Days of Hustling, (which he wrote, shot, directed and edited) played at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner and won Best Narrative Short at the 2016 Miami Independent Film Festival.

Most recently he edited Roberta, a feature-length documentary about legendary artist, Roberta Flack, for PBS/American Masters and the French network, Arte, which aired in early 2023 across the U.S. and Europe.

Karim is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, Local 700, and resides in Los Angeles, CA, USA.

More career highlights:

• 2017 / Cut two episodes on The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park, a true-crime documentary series for AMC and the Sundance Channel, directed by award-winning filmmakers, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, In My Father’s House, Reversing Roe).

• 2017 / Edited the narrative feature, Dementia 13 a re-make of Francis Ford Coppola’s cult horror film, for NBC Universal and Chiller Films.

• 2015 / Cut the narrative feature comedy, Chee and T (Special Jury Prize for Comedy, 2016 L.A. Film Festival); and

• 2014 / Edited and co-produced the feature-length documentary, We’re Still Here (Director, Antonino D’Ambrosio, based on his book, A Heartbeat and a Guitar), for Sony Masterworks, about the little-known Native American protest album, Bitter Tears, recorded by Johnny Cash. The doc aired nationally on PBS, Winter 2016.

• 2014 / Edited the short doc, Speak the Words the Way You Breathe, broadcast on French-German network Arte
2015 New York Film Festival / Winner of more than 20 International festival awards, as part of the Soundhunters Project

• 2013 / Edited the narrative feature, Sunset Edge (Director, Daniel Peddle), distributed by KINO LORBER.

• 2012 / Edited and co-produced the documentary, Let Fury Have the Hour (Director, Antonino D’Ambrosio)

• 2012 / Tribeca Film Festival / Rotterdam International Film Festival / DocHouse, London, UK.
Executive Produced by Brian and Brooke Devine (The Great Invisible, Goodbye Solo, Night Catches Us) and Jonathan Gray (Blue Caprice, Diana Vreeland:The Eye Has to Travel).

Karim’s narrative short, The Last Days of Hustling, (which he wrote, shot, directed and edited) played at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner and won Best Narrative Short at the 2016 Miami Independent Film Festival.

RECENT WORK

Dementia 13, Francis Ford Coppolla remake for Universal