Kief Davidson

Roles: Director, Producer

Kief Davidson is an Academy Award®-nominated director who makes films that inspire and entertain. His most recent film, Bending the Arc, executive produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in collaboration with the Sundance Institute and Skoll Foundation, follows Dr. Paul Farmer and his organization Partners In Health. The Ivory Game follows undercover operatives and rangers who are fighting the elephant ivory cartels. Executive Produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, the film premiered at Telluride and Toronto film festivals and was released as a Netflix Original in November 2016. A Lego Brickumentary, released theatrically in 2015 byRadius/TWC and narrated by Jason Bateman, delves into the extraordinary impact of the Lego brick, its massive global fan base, and the innovative uses for it that have sprung up around the world.

Kief also directed Open Heart, which was nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject of the 85th Academy Awards. The film took him and a small crew to the heart of Rwanda and Sudan. They followed eight children on a perilous journey to get high-risk surgery at Africa’s only high- tech, free-of-charge heart surgery hospital. The film made its US broadcast debut on HBO and internationally on ARTE Germany/France.Kief has had international success from the award-winning feature-length documentaries, Kassim the Dreamand The Devil’s Miner. Kassim the Dream, about a former child soldier turned boxing champion of the world, premiered at the Tribeca film festival and won over a dozen international film festivals, including AFI, IDFAand Silver Docs. A co-production with ARTE Germany/France, the film was theatrically released by IFC Films.His first feature, The Devil’s Miner, made its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival and won over 15awards at international film festivals including Tribeca, Hot Docs, Chicago and Woodstock. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Director by the Directors Guild of America and won the Fipresci prize atToronto.