Thorsten Trimpop is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Chicago. His latest film Furusato古里, is a human-scale portrait of a small town in Japan's nuclear exclusion zone. It premiered at DOK Leipzig, where it won the grand prize, the Golden Dove, and was shown at dozens of festivals. His first feature film, The Irrational Remains, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won numerous awards. For his new film he has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Memorial Award 2019.

Thorsten taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Boston University. From 2014-17 he was a fellow at MIT Open Documentary Lab. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute Chicago.