Abigail Disney
Nascimento : 1960-01-24, Los Angeles, California, USA
História
Abigail E. Disney is an Emmy-winning director and producer, philanthropist and the CEO and president of Fork Films. An active supporter of peacebuilding, she is passionate about advancing women's roles in the public sphere. Abigail's films and series focus on social issues and spotlight extraordinary people who speak truth to power.
Having grown up in a family of filmmakers, Abigail turned to documentaries when inspired to tell the story of a brave group of women who used nonviolent protests and sex strikes to bring an end to Liberia's long civil war. She and renowned filmmaker Gini Reticker made the widely acclaimed Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which is broadly credited with highlighting the achievements of Leymah Gbowee, who received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Abigail and Gini went on to found Fork Films, which is known for making and funding high profile, critically acclaimed documentaries that are seen on PBS, Netflix, HBO and other major outlets.
In addition to producing original films, Fork Films awards grants to non-fiction films that promote peacebuilding, human rights and social justice with a particular emphasis on projects with women behind or in front of the camera. As of June 2017, Fork Films has awarded over $4 million to 90 documentaries including Cameraperson, Trapped, 1971, The Mask You Live In, Citizen Koch, Hot Girls Wanted, The Invisible War, and Sun Come Up. Fork Films grantees have premiered at top tier film festivals, won major awards and moved the needle on important social issues.
In 2009, Abigail founded Peace is Loud, a nonprofit that inspires action through media and live events that spotlight women leaders on the frontline of peacebuilding worldwide.
Abigail's directorial debut, Emmy-winning The Armor of Light, co-directed by Kathleen Hughes, premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. The film follows Reverend Rob Schenck, an Evangelical minister, and Lucy McBath, the mother of a teenage shooting victim, who ask, is it possible to be both pro-gun and pro-life? Peace is Loud led the outreach and engagement campaign for The Armor of Light to restore a moral, ethical, and theological framework to the conversation about gun violence in America. The campaign has initiated and supported dialogue with faith leaders and communities around the country, reaching out beyond the documentary film community to target dozens of conservative evangelical influencers.
In 2012, along with Pamela Hogan and Gini Reticker, Abigail created and executive produced the first-of-its-kind series for PBS- Women, War, & Peace. The five-part series looked at women in modern war as active agents for peace and positive change makers in their communities. It garnered the Overseas Press Club's Edward R. Murrow Award, a Gracie Award, and a Television Academy Honor. Season II of the series is currently in production.
Abigail is the recipient of numerous awards including an honor by the International Women's Media Foundation for advancing women's issues and peace initiatives; IDA's Amicus Award, The International Advocate for Peace Award, presented by Cardozo Law School; and the Epic Award presented by The White House Project.
Disney received her Bachelor's degree from Yale University, her Master's degree from Stanford University and her Doctorate from Columbia University. She is a mother of four.
Executive Producer
Two sisters are abruptly separated, the eldest, Hasna, struggles to find her identity and place in the world.
Executive Producer
Investigates the politics of cinematic shot design, and how this meta-level of filmmaking intersects with the twin epidemics of sexual abuse/assault and employment discrimination against women, with over 80 movie clips from 1896 - 2020.
Story
Abigail Disney looks at America's dysfunctional and unequal economy and asks why the American Dream has worked for the wealthy, yet is a nightmare for people born with less. As a way to imagine a more equitable future, Disney uses her family's story to explore how this systemic injustice took hold.
Self
Abigail Disney looks at America's dysfunctional and unequal economy and asks why the American Dream has worked for the wealthy, yet is a nightmare for people born with less. As a way to imagine a more equitable future, Disney uses her family's story to explore how this systemic injustice took hold.
Producer
Abigail Disney looks at America's dysfunctional and unequal economy and asks why the American Dream has worked for the wealthy, yet is a nightmare for people born with less. As a way to imagine a more equitable future, Disney uses her family's story to explore how this systemic injustice took hold.
Director
Abigail Disney looks at America's dysfunctional and unequal economy and asks why the American Dream has worked for the wealthy, yet is a nightmare for people born with less. As a way to imagine a more equitable future, Disney uses her family's story to explore how this systemic injustice took hold.
Executive Producer
Artist, activist, and single mother, Lydia Emily, defies a crippling diagnosis and unforgiving healthcare system in a film about one woman’s will to survive.
Executive Producer
The story follows a group of birds on a journey where they try to find a better life for themselves and the ones they love.
Executive Producer
A rousing portrait of feminist writer Andrea Dworkin, one of the most controversial and misunderstood figures of the 20th century, who fought passionately for justice and equality for women.
Executive Producer
As a wave of anti-boycott legislation has swept through the country, so has a counter-wave in defense of freedom of speech. Everyday Americans are challenging these laws for their constitutionality in a nation-wide battle likely to go all the way to the Supreme Court.
Executive Producer
Na Los Angeles de 1960, as Irmãs do Imaculado Coração de Maria lutam por igualdade, autonomia financeira e liberdade – para isso, elas enfrentam um cardeal que tenta mantê-las naquele que ele acredita ser o lugar delas.
Executive Producer
Para pagar sua educação e a chance de uma vida melhor, uma jovem se junta a uma perigosa gangue.
Executive Producer
Van Jones navigates increasingly tense and isolating political and racial divides in his attempt to become a “bridge builder” during the Trump administration.
Co-Executive Producer
A state of secrets and a ruthless hunt for whistleblowers – this is the story of 25-year-old Reality Winner who disclosed a document about Russian election interference to the media and became the number one leak target of the Trump administration.
Co-Executive Producer
David Osit’s thought-provoking documentary is a real-life political saga following Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, during his second term in office.
Executive Producer
Missing in Brooks County follows the journey of two families who have come to Brooks County to look for their loved ones who went missing. As they search for answers, they encounter a haunted land where death is a part of everyday life. A gripping documentary mystery, it is also a deeply humane portrait of the law enforcement agents, human rights workers, and activists who come face to face with the life and death consequences of a broken system.
Executive Producer
Neste documentário, nomes influentes da arte e do pensamento transgêneros analisam o impacto de Hollywood na comunidade trans.
Executive Producer
In 2016, Stacie is barely scraping by in the small city of Rutland, Vermont. Manufacturing jobs have moved out, the opioid crisis has moved in and the working poor are at their breaking point. Stacie collects bottles to stretch her husband’s unemployment benefits, while she raises her kids and keeps herself off heroin. So when Rutland’s mayor takes the controversial step of accepting 100 Syrian refugees as part of his economic diversification plan, Stacie is torn. With so few jobs and government resources available to the people who already live there, residents begin to split along xenophobic and compassionate lines. Invalidated all her life for her poverty and addiction, Stacie could just as easily succumb to the white rage that crystallizes around her as identify with the intense daily struggles she shares with the incoming refugees. Nuanced and passionate, this fascinating look at a town divided reveals an unlikely hero caught in a flashpoint of Trump’s America.
Executive Producer
Jane (Julia Garner) é uma aspirante a produtora de cinema que recentemente conseguiu seu emprego dos sonhos como assistente júnior de um poderoso magnata do entretenimento. O dia dela é muito parecido com o de qualquer outra assistente. Mas, à medida que Jane segue sua rotina diária, ela começa a perceber todos os abusos que envolvem seu ambiente de trabalho e sua poisção profissional.
Executive Producer
In this timely and fearless personal documentary, director Ofra Bloch engages with the people she was raised to hate and dismiss. Seen as a victim in one context and a perpetrator in the next, the film points towards a future – an “afterward” – that attempts to live with the truths of history in order to make sense of the present.
Executive Producer
Filmmaker Judith Helfand's searing investigation into the politics of “disaster” – by way of the deadly 1995 Chicago heat wave, in which 739 residents perished (mostly Black and living in the city’s poorest neighborhoods).
Executive Producer
This film is a true-crime thriller that goes behind the headlines to uncover the deep-seated and social media-fueled “boys will be boys” culture at the root of high school sexual assault in America. Like many small towns across the country, Steubenville, nestled in a valley in eastern Ohio, lives and dies by its high school football team. So when a teenage girl was sexually assaulted at a pre-season football party in 2012, no one came forward with information. True-crime blogger Alex Goddard set out to uncover the truth, piecing together the details of the crime through cell phone footage and photos that made their way to YouTube, as well as a nearly minute-by-minute account of events on social media. In the process, she uncovered both the perpetrators and the entire culture of complicity that enabled them. The ensuing trial, which made national headlines, cut to the very heart of nationwide debates about rape culture.
Executive Producer
A political activist helps take care of a group of America’s most wanted fugitives, including a well-known, recently radicalized heiress.
Executive Producer
Roll Red Roll é um documentário americano de 2018, dirigido por Nancy Schwartzman e produzido por Jessica Devaney e Steven Lake, sob a bandeira de Sunset Park Pictures. O documentário é baseado no caso de estupro da Steubenville High School
Associate Producer
Quando Alice Guy-Blaché terminou seu primeiro filme em 1896, em Paris, ela não era apenas a primeira cineasta mulher, mas também uma das primeiras diretoras de cinema a fazer um filme narrado. Be Natural segue sua trajetória, desde secretária na Gaumont até sua indicação como Diretora de Produção em 1897, e sua subsequente carreira de sucesso de 20 anos na França e nos Estados Unidos, como fundadora de seu próprio estúdio, além de roteirista, diretora e/ou produtora de mil filmes - e depois completamente apagada da história. Até agora.
Co-Executive Producer
A talented group of orphaned children in Swaziland create a fictional heroine and send her on a dangerous quest.
Executive Producer
In 2015, a black, female professor at a prominent Christian college wore a hijab and said that Christians and Muslims worship the Same God. The firestorm that followed exposed the rifts among evangelicals over race, Islam, religious freedom...and Donald Trump.
Executive Producer
Cynthia Lowen’s powerful documentary Netizens highlights three women as each wages war against one of the internet’s most malevolent forces: prevalent and un-policed misogyny, harassment, and stalking. Directed at thousands of women daily by way of social media, it lies in plain sight, and its ramifications never remain only online. The film deftly depicts not only the forms digital abuse can take, from non-consensual pornography to invasion of privacy, but also the consequences for its victims.
Executive Producer
Grassroots activists in the Philippines are spurred into action when a local transgender woman is found dead in a motel room with a 19-year-old U.S. marine as the leading suspect. As they demand answers and a just trial, hidden histories of U.S. colonization come bubbling to the surface.
Executive Producer
Jennifer (Laura Dern) tem uma ótima carreira como documentarista e professora e um relacionamento repleto de carinho e respeito mútuo com seu noivo, Martin (Common). Porém, quando sua mãe encontra uma história que ela escreveu para escola quando tinha 13 anos contando sobre um relacionamento que teve com dois adultos, ela é obrigada a revisitar um passado traumático e reconciliar suas lembranças com o que de fato aconteceu com ela. (e 16 - Estimado 16 Anos)
Executive Producer
The remarkable story of Naila Ayesh, who played a key role in the Palestinian uprising known as the First Intifada (1987).
Executive Producer
One woman and her family trek the broken mental health system in an effort to save her brother as he descends into madness. Beginning as a testimony of his sanity, his iPhone video diary ultimately becomes an unfiltered look at the mind of an untreated schizophrenic.
Co-Executive Producer
A short documentary exploring the connection between Christianity and homophobia in the wake of the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Executive Producer
Iranian musician Shahin Najafi flees his homeland and heads to Cologne, Germany after harsh criticism by several clerics over the release of his song speaking out against human rights abuses resulted in a fatwa being issued.
Co-Executive Producer
Negligenciada pelo marido, Sarah embarca em uma viagem pela estrada com a sua filha e sua melhor amiga, Mindy. Durante o caminho, a dinâmica entre as duas amigas se intensifica antes de algumas circunstâncias separá-las. Anos depois, Sarah tenta reconstruir sua conexão com a amiga dias antes do casamento de Mindy.
Co-Executive Producer
Acompanhe a jornada de um grupo de ativistas cuja missão de salvar vidas no Haiti se transformou em uma luta global por saúde e justiça
Executive Producer
A detailed investigation into the political and economic interests that, since the beginning of the 20th century, have pulled the strings of the arms trade, hidden in the shadows, feeding the shameful corruption of politicians and government officials and promoting a state of permanent war throughout the world, while they cynically asked for a lasting and universal peace.
Executive Producer
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Director
Como a maioria dos outros ministros evangélicos conservadores, o Rev. Rob Schenck se opõe ao casamento do mesmo sexo. Ele também é veementemente contra os direitos do aborto. Mas, como mostra este vídeo da Op-Doc, ele é notável porque ele adota sua posição pró-vida até agora que ele concorre a morte por arma. Do jeito que ele vê, a violência armada que atende a nossa nação é semelhante ao "aborto adulto".
Executive Producer
When 24-year-old Hend Nafea is arrested and tortured for demonstrating peacefully in Cairo's Tahrir Square, her pursuit of justice reflects post-revolution Egypt at an uncertain crossroads.
Executive Producer
Apresentado no Festival Sundance de Cinema de 2015, este documentário do produtor Rashida Jones investiga a indústria do pornô “amador” e as mulheres exploradas.
Director
Following the journey of an Evangelical minister trying to find the courage to preach about the growing toll of gun violence in America. Reverend Rob Schenck, anti-abortion activist and fixture on the political far right, breaks with orthodoxy by questioning whether being pro-gun is consistent with being pro-life.
Executive Producer
When director Sharon Shattuck's father came out as transgender, Sharon was in the awkward throes of middle school. As the Shattucks reunite to plan Sharon's wedding, she seeks a deeper understanding of how her parents' marriage, and their family, survived intact.
Co-Producer
A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.
Co-Executive Producer
Ex-cunhados, mas ainda grande amigos, Mitch (Earl Lynn Nelson) e Colin (Paul Eenhoorn) embarcam em uma viagem para a Islândia, para relembrar a juventude nas boates de Reyjavik e nos SPAs, enquanto discutem a solidão, amizade e o passar do tempo.
Executive Producer
Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street. They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a 'Gang of Killer Lesbians'.
Executive Producer
This call to arms documentary details the questionable ethics of the food supply industry, pointing out the power of huge supermarket chains to dictate low wages and inhumane labor conditions for farmworkers in the United States.
Executive Producer
A tímida Johanna Parry (Kristen Wiig) é contratada para tomar conta de um homem idoso e da pré-adolescente Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld). Esta adulta solitária cai na invenção de Sabitha, que simula o interesse amoroso de seu pai (Guy Pearce), um homem dependente de drogas, pela nova babá. Johanna embarca neste amor platônico...
Executive Producer
A fearless sea captain, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, sails a ship through loopholes in international law, providing abortions on the high seas, and leaving in her wake a network of emboldened activists who trust women to handle abortion on their own terms.
Executive Producer
Seeds of Time follows agriculture pioneer Cary Fowler's global journey to save the eroding foundation of our food supply in a new era of climate change.
Co-Executive Producer
Eight Rwandan children leave their families behind to embark on a life-or-death journey seeking high-risk heart surgery in Sudan. Their hearts ravaged by a treatable disease from childhood strep throat, they have only months left to live. Open Heart reveals the intertwined endeavors of Dr. Emmanuel, Rwanda's lone government cardiologist fighting to save the lives of his young patients, and Dr. Gino, the Salam Center's head surgeon, who is fighting to save his hospital, Africa's only link to life-saving free cardiac surgery for the millions who need it.
Co-Executive Producer
With the epic dimensions of a Shakespearean tragedy, The Queen of Versailles follows billionaires Jackie and David’s rags-to-riches story to uncover the innate virtues and flaws of their American dream. We open on the triumphant construction of the biggest house in America, a sprawling, 90,000-square-foot mansion inspired by Versailles. Since a booming time-share business built on the real-estate bubble is financing it, the economic crisis brings progress to a halt and seals the fate of its owners. We witness the impact of this turn of fortune over the next two years in a riveting film fraught with delusion, denial, and self-effacing humor.
Executive Producer
O sonho das mulheres que entram para o exército norte-americano é servir e proteger seu país. Mas uma vez no campo de batalha, elas sofrem um número crescente de abusos sexuais por parte de seus supostos companheiros.
Executive Producer
For over a century, Carnegie Hall rented affordable studio apartments atop the famous music hall to artistic tenants such as Marlon Brando, Paddy Chayefsky and Isadora Duncan. As a privileged tenant, director Josef Birdman Astor began to videotape his neighbors whose lives intersected with decades of artistic history, but his project changed when the landlord served everyone with eviction notices for a conversion to offices. Astor chronicles the protracted battle to save the apartments and pays homage to their rich heritage.
Executive Producer
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
Co-Executive Producer
Two young children living illegally in a model apartment outside Boston are left to fend for themselves when their hardworking mother disappears
Executive Producer
An inside look at polygamist teens who have become religious refugees in mainstream America.
Executive Producer
What happens when western anthropologists descend on the Amazon and make one of the last unacculturated tribes in existence, the Yanomami, the most exhaustively filmed and studied tribe on the planet? Despite their "do no harm" creed and scientific aims, the small army of anthropologists that has studied the Yanomami since the 1960s has wreaked havoc among the tribe - and sparked a war within the anthropology community itself.
Executive Producer
Chico Colvard interviews family members 30 years after a dirty family secret is revealed. He finds out how his three sisters survived severe abuse at the hands of their father and how they cope as adults.
Co-Executive Producer
Libby Spears goes undercover in southeast Asia to infiltrate the vast network of people involved in human trafficking (specifically, sex slaves), and discovers that not only are a significant number of its victims children, but also that the United States is one of the industry's biggest customers. When she returns home to learn more, she discovers the roles that the educational system and law enforcement have played in keeping the issue off the radar.
Executive Producer
Figura carismática e brilhante negociador sociopolítico, o diplomata Sérgio Vieira de Mello dedicou sua carreira a cuidar de questões humanitárias em áreas de risco. Embaixador da ONU no Iraque, um ataque terrorista em Bagdá tirou a sua vida em 2003.
Producer
Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles the remarkable story of the Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country.
