‘Inconvenient Truth’ Producer, Participant Media Exec Was 66 – The Hollywood Reporter

Diane Weyermann, the passionate Participant govt and driving power behind such resonant documentaries because the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Fact, Citizenfour and American Manufacturing unit, has died. She was 66.

Weyermann died on Thursday in New York after a battle with lung most cancers, Participant introduced by way of a press launch.

Weyermann exited the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Movie Program to hitch Participant in 2005, quickly after entrepreneur Jeff Skoll based the socially acutely aware firm, and had been serving as chief content material officer since September 2019.

“From day 1, Diane introduced a ardour to her work and cared deeply in regards to the battles we helped battle over the problems portrayed in every movie,” he stated in a press release. “Over 17 years collectively, she was a champion in each method, by means of strategic, business, and rising world challenges. Diane was the guts and soul of Participant.”

Recognized for her integrity and unflagging assist of filmmakers, Weyermann was an govt producer on Al Gore’s climate-change doc An Inconvenient Fact (2006), directed by Davis Guggenheim, on Laura Poitras’ Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour (2014) and on Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s American Manufacturing unit (2019), from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Larger Floor Productions.

She additionally was an exec producer on the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Meals, Inc. (2008), a scathing exposé on the trendy meals business directed by Robert Kenner.

The admired Weyermann obtained Emmy noms for producing 2008’s Stress Cooker, a couple of lady who teaches a culinary course in hardscrabble Philadelphia, and David Byrne’s American Utopia (2020), directed by Spike Lee final 12 months.

She additionally collaborated with director Jonathan Demme on Jimmy Carter Man from Plains (2007), with Errol Morris on Customary Working Process (2008) and The Unknown Recognized (2013); with Guggenheim once more on Ready for Superman (2010); with Alex Gibney on On line casino Jack and the USA of Cash (2010), Zero Days (2016) and Completely Underneath Management (2020); with Jessica Yu on Final Name on the Oasis (2011) and False impression (2014); with Kenner once more on Retailers of Doubt (2014); with Morgan Neville on The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Highway Ensemble (2015); with Ai Weiwei on Human Movement (2017); and with Daybreak Porter on John Lewis: Good Bother (2020).

In a 2016 interview with IndieWire’s Anne Thompson, Porter described Weyermann as somebody who’s “empathetic [and] has impeccable style, and she or he’s enjoyable. She has the guts of a instructor. The ego of a documentary individual could be fragile. You keep in your cave and don’t come out for months and months, going through obtrusive scrutiny. She’s considerate and type and inspiring.”

Weyermann additionally exec produced the 2018 Starz collection America to Me and the 2020 Nat Geo miniseries Metropolis So Actual, two Chicago-centric tasks from documentarian Steve James.

“I might describe what we do, whether or not it’s on the documentary facet or on the narrative facet, as foremost, actually nice tales,” she stated in a 2019 interview about her work at Participant.

“They’re movies about one thing that issues, and there’s a social relevance to every part that we do. … [The films are] in regards to the world that we stay in, and it permits the viewers that connects to it to think about that world, or take into account one thing that’s introduced up within the movie, hopefully in a method that perhaps they haven’t thought-about it earlier than watching it.”

Weyermann represented indigent shoppers as a public curiosity lawyer, then earned her grasp’s diploma from Columbia School Chicago movie faculty in 1992.

“I used to be enthusiastic about justice, equality and human rights,” she advised Thompson. “I used to be all the time centered on documentary from day one. What me was tales about folks and the human situation.”

In 1996, Weyermann developed and directed the Soros Documentary Fund for the New York-based Open Society Institute, which supported worldwide docs that handled human rights points, social justice, civil liberties and freedom of expression.

She grew to become director in 2001 of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Movie Program, the place she launched annual labs for edit/storytelling and composers and helped construct a neighborhood of filmmakers.

When Guggenheim moved from dealing with documentaries at Participant to directing An Inconvenient Fact, Weyermann changed him and supervised his Oscar winner.

“It isn’t hyperbole to say that Diane Weyermann modified the world for the higher in a exceptional method,” stated Gore in a press release. “She shone a robust highlight on tales that provoked considerate motion to advertise justice and ignited progress towards a greater, safer and extra equitable future. Along with her talent and fervour, she spurred thousands and thousands to grow to be changemakers. Her deep and heartfelt empathy, artistic imaginative and prescient, and unwavering dedication to supporting each individual she encountered made her probably the most cherished of colleagues, mentors, and buddies.”

With Larry Karaszewski, she co-chaired the Academy’s overseas language Oscar govt committee from 2018 till she stepped apart in October 2020 as a result of Participant had the Romanian movie Collective in competition.

Weyermann is survived by her sister Andrea, brother-in-law Tim Goodwin, and her three nephews Will, Dylan and Harris. In partnership with the Camden Worldwide Movie Pageant, Weyermann’s household, buddies and colleagues established the Diane Weyermann Memorial Fund that the Factors North Institute (the father or mother group of CIFF) will use to develop an ongoing program to assist documentary filmmakers. The fund is launching with a grant from the Skoll Basis, and donations could also be made right here.

When she was promoted from president of documentary movie and tv at Participant to CCO, Skoll stated: “The one factor that surpasses Diane’s unassailable integrity is her extraordinary judgment on tales that matter. Her artistic partnership, her unparalleled work ethic, her mentorship of others, her deep relationships with the filmmaking neighborhood — the checklist of abilities goes on and on.”