Alec Fischer

Alec Fischer is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and LGBTQ+ advocate based in Minneapolis. At age 17, he created a short documentary titled Minnesota Nice? addressing the rising suicide rates of high school students in Minnesota. The documentary led to legislative changes throughout the state and was screened in hundreds of schools around the world. For his youth advocacy and storytelling work, Fischer was named a global Dalai Lama Fellow and featured by sites including MTV, The Washington Times, and USA Today. His most recent documentary series, Covid Confessions, highlights the stories of 330 workers across 40 industries in Minnesota impacted directly by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite being an independent self-financed project, the series won an EWA National Award for Education Reporting (2x nomination), was nominated for a national GLAAD Media Award, 18 Upper Midwest Emmy Awards (winning 5), and was recognized as a global finalist next to The New York Times for best Digital Video Storytelling, Series by the Online News Association. In 2023, Fischer signed a distribution deal with Snapchat allowing the series to be viewed by more than 2 million users between the ages of 13 and 25. He was included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his work bringing Midwestern stories to global audiences, and was invited to discuss the series impact with the White House Office of Public Engagement and COVID-19 Response Team. In 2024, he was named a global finalist for "Journalist of the Year" by One Young World and was selected as a National Fellow by the Education Writers Association to bring pandemic experiences of college students to audiences across the United States. He is currently working on his debut feature documentary film, titled "The Fair", which examines the modern traditions and culture of the Midwest region through North America's largest fair, the Minnesota State Fair.