Kief Davidson

About

Kief Davidson is an award-winning feature film and documentary director born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He began his filmmaking career in 1993 as editor on the Academy Award-nominated documentary, “Blood Ties: The Life and Work of Sally Mann.” He is also the recipient of two Emmy nominations for his work with National Geographic.

Kief has directed and produced documentaries for The Discovery Channel, ABC News, PBS, ARTE and A&E. As a narrative filmmaker, Kief wrote and directed the dark comedy, “Minor Details”, an independent feature film starring Peter Sarsgaard and Larry Pine.

His commercial, web and branded content work includes projects for American Express with John Legend, a series of short films for Glamour Magazine’s 2009 Women of the Year Awards, and a ‘making of’ short film for Absolut Blank.

Kief’s first feature documentary, “The Devil’s Miner”, world premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2005 and won over a dozen awards at International Film Festivals. He received the prestigious DGA award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Directing, won the coveted FIPRESCI- Film Critics Award and the PBS Independent Lens Audience Award.

His following feature, “Kassim The Dream,” told the story of Kassim Ouma, former child soldier turned boxing champion of the world. Executive Produced by Forest Whitaker, the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2008 and has won awards at AFI Fest, SilverDocs, IDFA Amsterdam and was nominated by the International Documentary Association for Best Documentary.

“Open Heart” is Kief’s latest project telling the story of eight Rwandan children who leave their families behind and embark on a life-or-death journey to receive high-risk open-heart surgery in Africa’s only free-of-charge, state-of-the-art cardiac hospital, the Salam Center run by Emergency, an Italian NGO. The film has made a splash on the festival circuit and has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.