About Us
Jim Butterworth and Daniel Chalfen first met in Salt Lake City in 2005. Stranded there due to a blizzard (after Jim had screened his first film Seoul Train and Daniel had screened Pulled from the Rubble at the SLC Film Center), they spent three days (mostly in an Italian restaurant) brainstorming ideas around a documentary production company.
It took a few years, but the duo in 2008 co-founded Naked Edge Films and supported their first two films: Saving Face, which was acquired by HBO and won an Oscar, and War Don Don, which also was acquired by HBO and was nominated for two Emmys.
Since then, NEF has morphed some, but Jim and Daniel have stuck to their core mission: Making boldly told, nuanced, intimate, and globally relevant films (and now series, too) driven by great stories and characters, and the diverse directors who want to bring them to life. Dozens of films later, they are now a pre-eminent production company, producing, executive producing, and consulting on documentary features, series, and IP-based scripted content.
Meet the Team
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Jim Butterworth
FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
Jim Butterworth brings his extensive track record of business formation, leadership and growth to Naked Edge Films. As a businessperson and filmmaker himself, Jim plays a hands-on role in the strategic development and execution of every NEF film. He has served as executive producer for each of NEF’s films, including most recently Loudmouth and Body Parts (Tribeca Festival, 2022), the Netflix Original Pray Away (Tribeca, Telluride 2021), the 2019 Sundance award-winners Always in Season and The Infiltrators, the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award winner United Skates for HBO, the Peabody and Critics Choice-award winning Southwest of Salem for Discovery ID, and The Mind of Mark DeFriest for Showtime.
Jim’s own film Seoul Train, which he produced, directed and shot, has been translated to more than twenty languages and broadcast on TV globally, including on the Emmy award winning PBS series Independent Lens. Seoul Train has been in competition at more than 100 international film festivals (winning more than a dozen awards), and has inspired countless grassroots and policy-level actions worldwide. In 2007, Seoul Train was bestowed the Alfred I. duPont – Columbia University Silver Baton for excellence in broadcast journalism and investigative reporting, the most prestigious prize in television and radio news, and the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Seoul Train also was runner-up for the 2007 National Journalism Award.
Jim also is the president and founder of Two-Way Media, which holds his 53 issued U.S. and foreign patents in streaming media. Jim was one of the pioneers in the streaming of audio and video over the Internet, having founded Netcast Communications Corp. in 1995. Netcast was a groundbreaking service that featured continuous 24×7 channels of music, news, sports, talk and other interactive audio programming.
In 1999, Jim founded LC39 Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm and one of the top-performing venture funds of its vintage. From 1990-1995, Jim worked with technology, media and telecom companies as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, where he also was responsible for building the firm’s leading tracking stock practice. Earlier in his career, Jim held marketing positions with Unisys Corporation and Data General, was an operations analyst and simulation programmer on defense projects for Rockwell International, and worked as a manufacturing engineer at Northern Telecom.
Jim is a frequent public speaker, having presented on Capitol Hill and before other legislative bodies worldwide, to the Council on Foreign Relations, at dozens of international conferences, and on college campuses. He also has made numerous appearances on television and radio, including on CNN, ABC, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, NHK (Japan), CBC, Canal + (France), National Public Radio, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and many other national and local media. He has been featured in print publications including Newsweek, Business 2.0, Crain’s New York and Fast Company magazine, and cited in many others.
Jim actively advises a number of nonprofits, startup companies and investment funds. Jim is a founder of Incite Productions, a nonprofit that produces documentaries promoting positive social change around the world. He was a member of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, which serves and advises the institute’s president, and is an Emeritus Member of the Alumni Advisory Board of the Georgia Tech School of Industrial & Systems Engineering. He served as an advisor to the U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation, a nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to promote international scientific and technical collaboration. In 2008, Jim served on the Obama for America Energy & Environment Policy Team and on the Steering Committee for Cleantech and Green Business for Obama (CT4O). He also has served as a judge for the Emmy Awards and for several international film festivals.
Jim holds a Master of Business Administration from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College and a Bachelor of Industrial & Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is an inductee into the Georgia Tech Academy of Outstanding Engineering Alumni and its Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni, and a recipient of the 2007 Dartmouth College Martin Luther King Jr. Award for significant contribution to social justice. Jim is based in Boulder, Colorado.
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Daniel J. Chalfen
FOUNDER & PRODUCER
Peabody and duPont-winning and eight time Emmy-nominated documentary producer Daniel J. Chalfen is a co-founder of Naked Edge Films. Originally from London, after a stint in Jerusalem, where he worked as a journalist before producing the groundbreaking series Ordinary People, he moved to the USA in 2000. In 2003, Chalfen started production on his first feature documentary, 39 Pounds of Love. The unexpected road-trip taken by a 40-year-old man who lived with SMA became a global sensation, selling to HBO/Cinemax in the USA and being shortlisted for an Oscar. Since then, Chalfen has produced or executive produced over 70 films that have premiered at the world’s foremost film festivals, including Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, Toronto and Tribeca, have been released in the US by companies including Samuel Goldwyn Films, Participant Media, Kino Lorber, and Focus Features, and have aired/streamed worldwide including in the US on Amazon, DirecTV, Discovery ID, HBO, Hulu, Netflix, Showtime, Sony Digital, Starz and PBS, among others.
Chalfen’s producer credits include Who Killed Alex Odeh? (directed by Jason Osder & William Lafi Youmans, World Premiere Sundance 2026); Deborah S. Esquenazi’s Night in West Texas (with Texas Monthly); Josh Alexander’s Loudmouth (executive produced by John Legend, Showtime/BET); Julia Bacha’s Boycott (SXSW 2022, with Just Vision); Ali El-Arabi’s Captains of Zaatari (Sundance Film Festival 2021, Hulu); the Sundance award winner The Infiltrators (directed by Cristina Ibarra & Alex Rivera) for PBS; Chris Bell’s Prescription Thugs (executive produced by Vince Vaughn, Samuel Goldwyn Films/Netflix); Gabriel London’s The Mind of Mark DeFriest for Showtime;Academy Award-nominated director James Spione’s Silenced (executive produced by Susan Sarandon) for DirecTV and Netflix; John Keating’s GameChangers: Dreams of BlizzCon; Gone for Discovery ID; the multiple Emmy-nominated War Don Don for HBO; and the multiple award-winning MeetingResistance (Al Jazeera).
Chalfen has also recently executive produced films including Maria Valeverde’s Gustavo Dudamel/Deaf West documentary El Canto de Las Manos; Paige Bethmann’s Remaining Native (SXSW 2025); Michael Corvo’s Playing Through for Sony Digital; Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s Body Parts (Tribeca Festival, 2022, Starz); Kristine Stolakis’ Netflix Original Pray Away (executive produced with Jason Blum & Ryan Murphy); Jacqueline Olive’s Sundance award winner Always in Season for PBS; Dava Whisenant’s Bathtubs Over Broadway (executive produced with Jason Blum & David Letterman, Focus/Netflix); Dyana Winkler & Tina Brown’s United Skates (executive produced with John Legend, HBO); PJ Raval’s Call Her Ganda and Assia Boundaoui’s The Feeling of Being Watched for PBS; Deborah Esquenazi’s Critic’s Choice winner Southwest of Salem; and Mike Attie & Meghan O’Hara’s In Country.
Chalfen’s earlier documentaries include Participant Media’s State 194;the Columbia duPont award-winning The Revisionaries for PBS; the CINE Golden Eagle Award winner for Televised News Division – Investigative Reporting documentary Code of the West for PBS; the Sarah Jessica Parker-executive produced Pretty Old; the Livestrong-executive produced Farewell to Hollywood; Town Hall for PBS; the Tribeca Film Festival and Silverdocs audience award-winning Donor Unknown; the Danny Glover-executive produced The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan; and the Berlin and Tribeca awards winner Budrus.
In 2013, Chalfen appeared as an on-screen judge in the Vince Vaughn Executive Produced non-scripted television competition series Pursuit of the Truth. Chalfen’s other non-fiction television series include Happy France for ARTE and Ordinary People, which was broadcast worldwide.
Chalfen is a graduate of UCLA’s School of Cinema, Television, and Theater, Los Angeles, (Professional Certificate in Producing); the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (MA Israeli Politics and Society); and the University of Leeds, England (BA Honours, Politics and Religious Studies). Chalfen is a consultant to The deNovo Initiative, and is a Documentary Branch member of AMPAS and a voting member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).