Nico Ballesteros, the director of the unauthorized documentary In Whose Name?, gave his first public interviews this week, describing why he spent six years filming Kanye West — now known as Ye — and how he preserved editorial control over footage that captures the rapper’s personal and professional turmoil.
Ballesteros began filming Ye in 2016 when he was 18 and continued intermittently through 2022, amassing more than 3,000 hours of footage. The resulting film, a vérité project without talking-head commentary, covers episodes that include Ye’s 2016 hospitalization after a mental-health crisis, the deterioration of his marriage to Kim Kardashian, public political interventions such as a 2018 visit to the White House, and the period in which he made widely condemned antisemitic remarks. Ballesteros has said he retained creative control and that Ye did not own or pay for the footage, a circumstance the director said preserved his ability to edit the material freely.
In interviews with the Los Angeles Times and The Hollywood Reporter, Ballesteros described his approach as journalistic and empathetic rather than prescriptive. "I didn’t make this to tell a story of descent or unraveling," he said. "I made it to tell a beautiful, deep story of an American figure. We live in such a headline-based society, so I believe this is the body text underneath those headlines. I’m not trying to persuade anyone. I want it to be like a Rorschach test."
Ballesteros said he became embedded in Ye’s creative circle after studying documentary filmmaking in high school and working in fashion and music, including stints connected to Off-White, the brand founded by Ye’s late protégé Virgil Abloh. He was hired after a previous documentarian left, and described the experience as a close apprenticeship: "It was an education: Let me see how he talks to Spike Jonze, how creative ideas actually come to life." He added that Ye often framed the project in terms of mental health, and that early on Ye told him, "When you film, you’re not just documenting, you’re also understanding what it could be."
The film shows moments that Ballesteros and his team say illuminate both Ye’s creative process and his crises. Among the scenes Ballesteros described are arguments with Kardashian, which the director said left her in tears, footage of Ye going off medication that had been prescribed for bipolar disorder, and episodes in which Ye spoke about wearing a bulletproof vest, suspected conspiracies against him, and alleged attempts at "mind control". The documentary also includes footage from the 2018 trip to the White House, in which Ye is shown on the phone with Jared Kushner discussing logistics and security for the visit.
Ballesteros said he did not share Ye’s political views and explicitly condemned hate speech. "I don’t support antisemitism, obviously, or hate speech. He and I don’t share the same views.... We’re human. That’s really where I’m at. He’s a person — he’s a human," Ballesteros told the Times.
The director said he maintained a professional rapport with Ye during filming. He recounted a text message he received from Ye after the film was completed: "That doc was very deep. It was like being dead and looking back on my life." Ballesteros also described Ye as at times mentor-like and courteous toward him on set.
In Whose Name? is presented as a cinéma vérité portrait and does not employ conventional expository narration or expert interviews. Ballesteros said he was conscious of the ethical weight of recording intimate and volatile moments and defended the decision to include unvarnished material, saying it was part of documenting the artist’s lived experience.
The documentary also highlights elements of Ye’s artistic influences and self-conception. Ballesteros said the rapper frequently referenced thinkers such as Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and invoked films about visionary figures — including There Will Be Blood and The Aviator — in conversations about creativity and its costs.
Questions remain about who appears in the completed film. Ballesteros acknowledged that the documentary covers the period through 2022, and it was unclear whether Ye’s marriage to Bianca Censori, which occurred after the filming window, would be depicted.
Ballesteros announced that In Whose Name? will be released independently on Sept. 19, with plans to screen in what he described as "thousands" of AMC theaters. The film’s unauthorized status means it was produced without Ye’s editorial approval, a point Ballesteros said he regarded as essential to preserving the film’s integrity.
The documentary arrives amid continued public scrutiny of Ye’s conduct and statements in recent years. Ballesteros’ interviews focus on his own role as a documentarian and the editing choices that shaped the final film, presenting the material as evidence for audiences to assess rather than a definitive judgment. The film’s release is likely to fuel further discussion about the intersections of celebrity, mental health, creative expression and accountability.