Emily Abt
Selected as one of Variety Magazine’s Top 10 Directors to Watch, Emily Abt is an ambidextrous filmmaker who has directed five features. Abt’s narrative feature TOE TO TOE was nominated for the Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival and theatrically released nationwide by Strand. Abt’s first feature documentary TAKE IT FROM ME (PBS’s POV series) was created when she was a 23 year-old caseworker in New York City. She then went on to receive her MFA in film directing from Columbia University and was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to make her thesis film. Abt’s other feature documentaries include ALL OF US (Showtime’s 2008 World AIDs Day film) and DADDY DON’T GO which was executive produced by the actors/activists Omar Epps and Malik Yoba. The film won eight “Best Documentary” awards and premiered on the Starz network in 2017. In 2018 Abt was tapped by Showtime to direct the feature documentary feature BEYOND THE OPPOSITE SEX about two transgender people living in rural America. It premiered on the network in Spring 2018. Abt’s current fiction feature project THIRSTY won the Athena Award for scripts featuring outstanding female protagonists and stars Jamie Neumann, Sung Kang, Tyler Lepley, Kyra Sedgwick, Thora Birch, Brandee Evans and Briana Venskus-Vazquez. THIRSTY was filmed in the Bay Area during winter 2022 and is now in post-production.