Nancy Buirski

NANCY BUIRSKI – Director, Producer, Writer

It is with great sadness that Augusta Films announces the death of award-winning documentary filmmaker Nancy Buirski in August 2023. Nancy’s extensive and rich body of work delved into a wide range of social, cultural and historical issues with keen insight, humanity and above all, artistry.

Nancy’s passion for the documentary form started in her early career as a photographer and editor at both The New York Times and Magnum. Nancy was an accomplished still photographer publishing the collection “Earth Angels: Migrant Children in America” in 1994.

Nancy made the leap from photography to film in 1998 when she founded the legendary Full Frame Film Documentary Festival where she served as Director until 2008. Under Nancy’s leadership and vision Full Frame became known as a champion of independent documentary makers from around the world.

An avid supporter, producer, and curator of documentary films, Buirski stepped into the director’s seat for the first time in 2011 with the award-winning The Loving Story, a documentary about the landmark Supreme Court Case of Loving v Virginia and the quiet, powerful love between the couple at the center of the case. Buirski's subsequent films would go on to reflect a unique style in both topic and composition, choosing subjects that were often hiding in the margins but profoundly relevant to modern cultural conversation and critique. 

Her most recent film, currently in theatrical release from Zeitgeist Films, was DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY. The film premiered at the Venice and Telluride Films Festivals in 2022 and went on to play countless festivals in the US and internationally. In Variety, critic Owen Gleiberman wrote “Desperate Souls, Dark City” captures what a disarmingly intimate film “Midnight Cowboy” was, but the documentary is also an essay on how the movie acted as a kind of portal: a passage from the old world to the new one.”

Her frequent collaborator and producer, Susan Margolin, said: “The field has lost a giant today. Nancy was a completely original thinker and a visionary.  With every film she pushed the limits of the art form with her kaleidoscopic, unique approach to storytelling.  She was an exceptionally generous supporter of other artists in the field, and will be mourned by so many. We are devastated by this loss.”

Nancy also served as a producer on LOVING (2015) by Jeff Nichols, with Colin Firth. The film, featuring Oscar nominee Ruth Negga went on to win the PGA Stanley Kramer award. And she was a Special Advisor on SUMMER OF SOUL (2020), winner of Academy Award, Best Documentary.

Nancy was a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy.  She was represented by Jessica Lacy at Range Media and Boaty Boatwright at CAA.

Nancy is survived by her sister Judith Cohen and her niece and nephew Erica and Ted Rosen. The film and creative community mourns this great loss and will remember her indefatigable energy, optimism, passion, and her devotion to her art, family, friends, and collaborators.

Claire L. Chandler

Producer

Claire L. Chandler is a producer and editor specializing in feature documentaries. Selected recent credits include Producer of Nancy Buirski’s The Rape of Recy Taylor and A Crime on the Bayou and Co-Producer of Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy and By Sidney Lumet. She edited Father’s Kingdom and The Yes Men Are Revolting, and was associate producer/editor on The Light In Her Eyes (POV) and Jehane Noujaim’s Egypt: We Are Watching You (BBC, ARTE). She has worked on films released and broadcast worldwide including on PBS, HBO, ARTE, and BBC. She has also directed, produced, and edited numerous fine art film and video pieces.

Susan Margolin

Producer

Susan Margolin has built a reputation as a pioneer of home entertainment and digital distribution and a dedicated supporter of the independent filmmaking community. Her company, New Video, launched in 1992 with partner Steve Savage, became a leading global force in independent home entertainment.  New Video’s library of films, television and web content, featured programming from leading brands including A+E, History Channel, Monty Python, Thames Television, Sundance Institute, Tribeca Films, Major League Baseball and Scholastic.

Through Docurama Films, a subsidiary of New Video, Margolin championed more than 400 award-winning non-fiction films, from Academy Award nominees including Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War, Joe Berlinger’s Paradise Lost trilogy, Danfung Dennis’ Hell and Back Again, Nancy Buirski’s The Loving Story and D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back, and built the largest independent digital aggregation company in North America.    Margolin and Savage sold New Video/Docurama Films to Cinedigm in 2012. As Co-President of Cinedigm Entertainment Group, Margolin released critically acclaimed independent films including Daniel Destin Crettin’s Short Term 12.

Margolin recently launched St. Marks Productions LLC, a production and distribution services company. She is currently producing Director Alexandra Codina’s upcoming feature documentary, Unaccompanied Children.  Her recent productions include Nancy Buirski’s critically acclaimed feature documentary, The Rape of Recy Taylor, distributed by The Orchard, and both Cheryl Miller Houser and Cynthia Wade’s documentary feature Generation Startup and Judith Helfand’s upcoming feature documentary Love & Stuff, on which she served as Executive Producer.  Margolin currently serves on the Board of Directors of Chicken & Egg Pictures and the Hamptons Take Two Film Festival, and also serves on the advisory board of New York Women in Film and Television.  She was honored by the Producers Guild of America as one of the “Digital 25: Leaders in Emerging Entertainment.”

Dr. Amy Tiemann

Executive Producer

Dr. Amy Tiemann is the Founder and President of Spark Productions and an owner of Manifold Recording, a world-class media production studio in Pittsboro, North Carolina. An an award-winning author, educator and media producer, Dr. Tiemann beings informed insights to each of her varied projects. Her Executive Producer credits include the acclaimed documentaries The Rape of Recy Taylor and Olympic Pride, American Prejudice (2016), which explores beyond the mythology of Jesse Owens as a solo hero to tell the story of all 18 pioneering African-American athletes who honorably represented the USA at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin; and the forthcoming doc Overland (2018), a soaring, cross-cultural film about the art of falconry.

As a scientist Tiemann earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford University. Her background includes years of cutting edge brain research as well as extensive high school and university-level teaching experience. Tiemann has been a passionate, lifelong advocate for human rights and equality. She is a nationally recognized expert on personal safety for people of all ages and is the co-author of Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels of Society (2018) with the founder of Kidpower Teenpower Fullpower International, a global nonprofit leader in personal safety education. Tiemann's interest in personal safety and self-development extends to martial arts; she is a black belt practitioner of to-shin do ninjutsu.

Each of these areas of expertise informs Dr. Tiemann's perspectives as a production company head and executive producer.