Realis Pictures is a nonprofit company founded in New York in 1986 to produce documentaries and news reports on critical social and political issues that receive only cursory treatment in standard media accounts. The driving philosophy of Realis Pictures is to get the story out as quickly as possible which often means working on shoe-string budgets rather waiting long durations between for foundation grants.

Since 1986 Realis Pictures has produced or co-produced seven documentaries and approximately sixty news magazine segments, documentary shorts and news reports on a variety of breaking issues ranging from the gay rights movement in New York to the assassination of the Brazilian environmentalist/activist Chico Mendes to the Brazilian gold mining invasion in Yanomami Territory in the late 1980's.

Geoffrey O'Connor and Phil Zwickler founded Realis Pictures in 1985. Phil was a gay activist, a writer and a filmmaker who died in the early 1990's as a result of complications from AIDS. Phil left behind a legacy of work including his film Rights and Reactions: Gay and Lesbian Rights on Trial and the landmark documentary short Fear of Disclosure which he produced in collaboration with the acclaimed New York artist David Wornajovic. For eight years the independent producer Chris Caris played a key role at Realis Pictures as the coordinating producer on all news and documentary productions and as an executive producer on Amazon Journal. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

Other key members to the team at Realis Pictures include Miranda Smith and Patricia Monte-Mor who served as Associate Producers on all of the productions from the Brazilian Amazon.

For a listing of all the works of Realis Pictures see the Realis Filmograpy.