Award winning journalist and media maker Niko Georgiades (he/him) works to bring context to social and environmental struggles from the frontlines of resistance to the back alleys of change. After spending a majority of his teen life incarcerated, Georgiades worked with youth at a Minneapolis non-profit for nearly two decades. In 2015, Niko co-founded the groundbreaking independent media organization Unicorn Riot, where he plays many roles including media production, administration and finances. Niko is a published author, a public speaker and an Associate Producer of the full length film MAMA!, which his videography is featured prominently in — watch for free on Tubi.
Niko’s work with Unicorn Riot has been featured in major publications such as The New Yorker, The Guardian, Nieman Lab, Columbia Journalism Review, Business Insider, Mother Jones, MPR News, Star Tribune, MSP Mag, Vice, Engadget, The Face, Southwest Journal, World Press Institute, The Intercept, MN Reformer, and Heavy, among others.
Check out Niko’s Portfolio here: VIDEOS, PRESENTATIONS / PANELS, PROFILES / INTERVIEWS / MENTIONS, ARTICLES / WRITING, HOSTING / PODCASTS
Georgiades grew up in Clarks Grove, a small southern Minnesota town and was an avid athlete until he broke his neck at age 12. Losing what he thought was his purpose in life, he then spent numerous years incarcerated in nearly a dozen institutions as a youth. At the age of 21, Georgiades began working with WE WIN Institute, a youth-serving non-profit in Minneapolis. He started as a van driver and youth worker for summer and after-school programs and quickly became program supervisor and eventually an administrative assistant. For over 17 years Niko worked closely with hundreds of youth and their families in Minneapolis and directly mentored nearly a dozen youth.
Connecting with independent media makers during the Occupy Wall Street movement (2011), Niko was introduced to what would be the next phase in his life, becoming a journalist and video reporter. Before helping found Unicorn Riot in 2015, from 2012-2014 he contributed as a videographer to several independent media projects, covered protests in Ferguson/St. Louis for ABC/Univision after Mike Brown was killed, and had his work covering anti-police protests in Minneapolis featured in HBO.
Thanks to the many who laid the way and taught him different skills of the trade, Georgiades has now published thousands of articles, videos, live streams from the frontlines of conflicts around the world, published numerous documentaries ranging topics from protests and resistance to investigations, arts and culture, alternative economies and community projects. See his portfolio HERE.
Georgiades’ first documentary production with Unicorn Riot was a spotlight on Milwaukee’s ‘Heal the Hood‘ Block Party, which brought together street-organizations like the GD’s and the Vice Lords. Niko co-produced feature-length documentary Black Snake Killaz: A #NoDAPL Story on the Indigenous-led resistance to an oil pipeline in 2016-2017 and since then, he’s made numerous short docs and media pieces.
Niko has extensively documented police killings in the Twin Cities and across the world with hundreds of reports published. He co-hosted The Mothers Podcast with Georgia Fort which features the stories of mothers who’ve lost their children to police killings. Similarly, he is an Associate Producer of the film MAMA! which follows three mothers who lost their sons to state violence.
In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, Georgiades reported live from the frontlines of the uprising for over 40 hours in the first week and published a 5-episode Reporter Reflection on George Floyd Uprising series along with a feature-length documentary combing all episodes. A year later he published Beyond the Barricades, a documentary on George Floyd Square.
Georgiades is a published author and is currently working on a few books including an creative writing piece detailing his experiences in the juvenile system in Minnesota. Read his chapter in Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy which focuses on the horizontal organizing of workers in Vio.Me., an occupied factory in Thessaloniki, Greece.
This website details a litany of media pieces that Niko’s created, co-created, or been featured on — albeit not all. Find his videos, article, photographs, speaking engagements, and profiles on him at the front page. To book for speaking engagements, email: ancestralash at gmail dot com.
Georgiades acknowledges he’s a settler on Indigenous lands in what’s now called Minnesota. He can trace his family roots to Patras, Greece where his cousin Andreas Michalakopoulos was the Prime Minister before he was tortured to death by the fascist Metaxes dictatorship in 1938.
The Work of Niko G 