Tim Grucza is an Emmy award winning cinematographer and filmmaker specialized in conflict reporting. He shot and directed several feature length documentaries about the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan & Libya. Most recently he spent 7 months on the ground in Afghanistan filming for Matthew Heineman’s RETROGRADE.

For 16 years he shot, co-produced or contributed to 35 episodes of PBS investigative documentary program, FRONTLINE. These films covered wars in Iraq & Afghanistan; the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed 220,000 people; investigating the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks; the “Arab spring” uprisings in Egypt; heroin addiction on the streets of Seattle; immigration policy on the Mexican border; the first COVID outbreak in New York City and the 2022 war in Ukraine. His work on the “The War Briefing” episode, following a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, won him the cinematography Emmy.

Grucza’s debut feature doc, White Platoon, followed US cavalry soldiers during the first year of the American occupation in Iraq, winning the 2006 Banff International Television award. Grucza then shot and directed “The Last Outpost” about a joint US/Afghan mission on the Pakistan border when a young Afghan soldier turned his weapon on his own platoon. For BBC’s Storyville Global he co-directed “First to Fall” about young Libyan rebel soldiers fighting for independence from the Gaddafi regime. He shot and co-produced “My Brother’s Bomber”, hunting for perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing amidst the ensuing anarchy of post Gaddafi Libya. He was cinematographer on the NETFLIX film “Theo Who Lived” about Theo Padnos’ kidnapping and escape from ISIS captivity in Syria. And he co-directed/shot “Unschooled” which premiered at DocNYC, about alternative education for a group of teenagers in one of Philadelphia’s most impoverished communities.

Grucza shot several episodes for National Geographic’s revered investigation series, EXPLORER, filming with the mountain gorillas in Rwanda and Congo and the rangers that risk their lives protecting them.

He produced several episodes of CNN’s “Heroes” series, sharing a Peabody award in 2012.

He was born and raised in Australia, lived in Paris for 10 years and now resides in Brooklyn NY.