Rush Sturges

Rush Sturges is widely considered one of the world’s most influential kayakers as well as a prominent action sports filmmaker. To date, Sturges has created nine award-winning whitewater kayaking films, including his debut feature documentary Chasing Niagara followed by The River Runner (Mountainfilm 2021), available on Netflix. He is also the producer and director of GoPro: Return to the Ditch Tandem (Mountainfilm 2017) and Nouria Newman Kayaks Norway (Mountainfilm 2020). Sturges has honed his filmmaking and paddling skills on location in some of the planet’s wildest places from Pakistan to China to the Congo. He is also passionate about uplifting the voices and messages of Indigenous communities and in 2022 he co-founded the Paddle Tribal Waters program with Rios to Rivers, designed to teach tribal youth the sport of kayaking. He is currently working on a documentary film that follows the tribal youth as they train to become the first group of people to successfully navigate the Klamath River from source to sea. He is the co-director of Paddle Tribal Waters (Mountainfilm 2023).