Christopher Cassel

Christopher Cassel is a Primetime Emmy Award-winning director, writer and show runner whose credits have ranged from feature vérité docs to character-driven TV series to historical docudramas and biographical profiles of well-known public figures. Chris earned his first directing credit for ROME: ENGINEERING AN EMPIRE, produced for History. When it premiered in September 2005, it drew one of the network's highest ratings ever, winning two Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Nonfiction Special. In 2010-2011, Chris supervised, directed and wrote RISING: REBUILDING GROUND ZERO, a six-part series for Discovery Channel that followed the rebirth of the World Trade Center through the eyes of the builders, architects, politicians and 9/11 family members. Steven Spielberg presided as the Executive Producer. In 2012, Chris started his own shingle, Castle Pictures, which quickly gained traction as a full-service production company. As President and Creative Director of the company, Chris developed and produced original semi-scripted and unscripted projects for a range of broadcast and digital clients. From 2012-2018, Castle Pictures delivered three series and six specials. The company's Wild West docudrama series GUNSLINGERS set ratings records that still stand for Discovery's American Heroes Channel and garnered two Emmy nominations. Next, Castle Pictures delivered a series of high profile projects for National Geographic Channel, including the Explorer special BILL NYE'S GLOBAL MELTDOWN (2015), which follows Bill Nye the Science Guy as he explorers the "five stages of climate change grief," from Denial to Acceptance, with some help from his "therapist," Dr. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The documentary won the prestigious Sentinel Award in the Climate Change Category. More recently, Chris directed his first full-length feature documentary, INTO THE LOST DESERT, which follows Italian explorer Max Calderan as he becomes the first person to cross the world's last unexplored desert, Saudi Arabia's Rub' al Khali. It was picked up by STX Films in 2021 and launched on Tubi that year. Chris is now developing and writing a scripted drama series set in Rome in the late 1960s with Martin Sheen attached to star and serve as Executive Producer. Chris, a Jersey boy from birth, is a proud dad of two teens, a lucky husband to his college sweetheart, a soccer coach, an avid reader and a guitar tinkerer. He loves history, baseball, Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Goodfellas and Back to the Future. And he likes to think he's got a few more years yet in that sweet spot where sage experience and youthful energy dovetail.