My Story

I’m Ursula (she/her) and I’m a documentary artist, former global rights worker, and pop culture enthusiast based in Brooklyn. Born in Egypt but raised under live oaks in Tallahassee, Florida, being Southern is an important part of my orientation to the world – how the stories we tell can be used to whitewash or to fight back. 

 

Informed by this, I seek out the nexus points of entertainment and intimacy, often through the language of archival. I aim to pull on threads of community and the right to dignity, both present in my work on HBO’s parole documentary Nature of the Crime (2024). From 2021 to 2024, I chased this feeling as a freelancer working on projects I loved about high schoolers, UFOs, and Olympians. I pushed each story – and the experience of those whose stories we were telling – in the direction of joy and connection.

 

In a prior professional life, I worked back-to-back on different issues that spoke to me. In 2021, I ran an arm of the Georgia Democrats’ ballot-curing effort out of my bedroom. Before that, I was a legal assistant fighting for disability rights in sunny LA. Just out of college, as a research specialist in global sexual rights, I managed grants from the WHO and UNDP. And, as a college student, I volunteered with torture survivors, asylum seekers in a refugee camp, and won an award for local community organizing. I heard more stories than I could ever tell.

 

Currently, I am an Associate Producer on NBC’s long-form unscripted series Dateline. I’m continuing to build my archival skills as the frontline for rights and clearances on each syndicated episode - selecting materials and balancing risk with content quality. I hope to continue moving towards stories about people who dream, even while facing our most violent structures. I have seen great hope blossom even in places of great hopelessness.

 

If you’re interested in working together or just want to talk, feel free to reach out. Hope to hear from you.

 

Cheers,

Ursula McPherson-Vitkus