Nancy Buirski, Documentary Filmmaker and Founder of Full Frame Festival, Dies

Nancy Buirski, the acclaimed and award winning documentary filmmaker behind “The Loving Story” and the cofounder of the Full Frame festival, died Wednesday, her production company, Augusta Films announced. She was 78.

Buirski’s cause of death was not disclosed; her representatives told TheWrap they did not know her age.

“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,” Buirski’s frequent collaborator, Susan Margolin, said in a statement.

Born in New York, Buirski began her career as a photographer, eventually working as a photo editor for the New York Times, where her work won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. In 1998 she founded the Full Frame Film Documentary Festival, serving as director for a decade, where she established it as a haven for independent documentary voices.

But it wouldn’t be until 2011 that Buirski became a documentary director in her own right, with “The Loving Story,” an examination of the landmark Supreme Court ruling (Loving v. Virginia) that struck down laws against interracial marriage. Winning Peabody and Emmy awards, the documentary inspired the 2016 film “Loving,” directed by Jeff Nichols; Buirski was a producer on the film.

Buirski’s other films included: “Afternoon of a Faun” (2013), “By Sidney Lumet” (2015), “The Rape of Recy Taylor” (2017), nominated for NAACP Image and Peabody awards, and “A Crime on the Bayou” (2021).

Her most recent film, “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy,” premiered in 2022 at the Telluride and Venice film festivals and is currently in theaters.

A member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences as well as the Television Academy, she served as a special advisor on the Oscar-winning documentary “Summer of Soul.”

Buirsky’s date of birth is not public. According to a New York Times announcement from 1996, that year she married Kenneth Harper Friedlein; it was, according to the announcement, her second marriage.

It is unknown if she was married at the time or her death or if she had children. She’s survived by her sister Judith Cohen and her niece and nephew.

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