CDS Alum Ryan White Earns Oscar Nomination for “Come See Me in the Good Light”

Ryan White, a 2007 graduate of Duke’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and an alum of the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS), has received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Documentary Feature for his 2025 film Come See Me in the Good Light. The recognition marks a major milestone for the CDS alum and is being celebrated across Duke’s arts and documentary communities. 

Come See Me in the Good Light is “a poignant and unexpectedly funny love story about poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley facing an incurable cancer diagnosis with joy, wit and an unshakable partnership.” The documentary premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Festival Favorite Award, and later captured the Iris Tillman Hill Audience Award–Feature at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, CDS’s flagship program. The film is now streaming on Apple TV+. 

Roots at CDS

For White, the nomination is both deeply personal and inseparable from his Duke and CDS experience. “My freshman year, I saw an Agnès Varda film on campus and it blew me away,” he says. “I immediately enrolled in all the CDS classes that I could, and documentary filmmaking took over my life at Duke for the next four years. I basically lived at CDS, learning from so many mentors there that shaped me.”  

“Ryan White was a natural storyteller with film as an undergraduate,” says Tom Rankin, one of his mentors and first instructors at CDS. “He showed a keen eye and ear for compelling and timely stories, and his earliest films reveal an artful and sensitive handling of the camera and editing.” Rankin recalls that when White — along with fellow Duke and CDS students Rebekah Fergusson and Gwendolyn Oxenham — first proposed the project that became Pelada (2010), “it was clear that Ryan understood all the invisible facets of filmmaking — the organizational, business, and fundraising pieces.” 

Since graduating in 2007 with a Certificate in Documentary Studies, White has built a prolific career directing and producing documentaries for major platforms including Netflix, HBO and Apple. His credits include Good Ol’ Freda, The Case Against 8, The Keepers, Ask Dr. Ruth and Good Night Oppy. His work is widely recognized for its character-driven storytelling and ethical approach to nonfiction filmmaking — sensibilities he often traces back to his time in the CDS community. 

A Lasting Connection with CDS and Full Frame 

Sadie Tillery, festival co-director and artistic director of Full Frame, says “it has been exciting to see Ryan White’s trajectory as a filmmaker, and Full Frame is proud to have been a part of sharing his work over the last fifteen years.” She adds that the recognition for Come See Me in the Good Light “is especially meaningful, as the film highlights the connection Ryan forges with the people he films and the luminous moments he discovers, even as protagonists navigate daunting circumstances.” 

White says that Full Frame became “my de facto film school, where I could meet my heroes and dream of making films like them one day,” He attended panels as a Full Frame Fellow that featured Sheila Nevins and Molly Thompson — producers he would later collaborate with.  

Beyond Industry Recognition 

Andrea Gibson passed away in the summer of 2025. “I feel like I was given such a gift getting to document Andrea and Megan’s final year together alongside them,” says White. “None of us ever dreamed it would have led to an Oscar®-nominated film. I’m thrilled mostly because I know so many more people will watch the movie now and hopefully be moved by Andrea’s story.” 

 For Rankin, White’s Oscar recognition reflects both his talent and the community that helped nurture it. “A key ingredient to all Ryan does is his seemingly innate sensitivity to others, his collaborative and trusting spirit, and his deep ethical view of documentary filmmaking,” he says. “I like to think that deep in the confluence of the many influences that propel Ryan White’s creative power as a filmmaker is the Duke/Durham documentary ecosystem.”