Press Contact: Natasha Padilla, WNET, 212.560.8824, [email protected] Press Materials: http://pbs.org/pressroom or http://thirteen.org/pressroom Websites: http://pbs.org/americanmasters , http://facebook.com/americanmasters , @PBSAmerMasters , http://pbsamericanmasters.tumblr.com , http://youtube.com/AmericanMastersPBS , http://instagram.com/pbsamericanmasters , #AmericanMastersPBS American Masters: By Sidney Lumet Premieres nationwide Tuesday, January 3 at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) Production Bios Nancy Buirski Director and Producer Nancy Buirski is the director and producer of American Masters: By Sidney Lumet , which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 and was released theatrically in fall 2016. Her documentary Afternoon of a Faun (2013) had its world premiere at the 51 st New York Film Festival and international premiere at the 64 th Berlinale. It was broadcast in June 2014 by American Masters (PBS) and had a record-breaking theatrical release by Kino Lorber in the U.S. She is the director, producer and writer of the Peabody- and Emmy Award-winning The Loving Story (2012) (HBO). The film was shortlisted for an Academy Award and won the WGA Screenwriters Award. It was selected for Sundance’s Film Forward, the U.S. State Department’s American Film Showcase, and screened at The White House. She is a producer of Loving (2016), the narrative version of The Loving Story, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and was released theatrically by Focus Features on Nov. 3. Her Augusta Films is producing with Colin Firth’s Raindog Films and Big Beach Films. It is helmed by Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter , Mud ) and stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. Buirski is currently directing Endangered , a live-action/animated narrative based on Eliot Schrefer’s award-winning YA novel of that title and The Rape of Recy Taylor , a documentary that reveals the true origins of the Civil Rights Movement. She is developing Tanny , the narrative version of Afternoon of a Faun . For more production credits, please see IMDB. Buirski founded and was the director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival for 10 years. Prior to her work in film, Buirski was the foreign picture editor at The New York Times , garnering the paper its first Pulitzer Prize in photography. Her photo book Earth Angels: Migrant Children in American was published by Pomegranate Press. Prints from the collection were exhibited at the Smithsonian and traveled throughout the U.S. She serves on the Full Frame Board of Advisors, and is a member of the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Christopher Donnelly Producer Christopher Donnelly is a manager at LBI. Previously, he was partner at WME in the motion picture literature department. His clients include Martin Scorsese ( The Departed , Goodfellas ); Jonathan Demme ( The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia ); Jonathan Glazer ( Sexy Beast ); Michael Mann ( Heat , Collateral ); Oliver Stone ( Platoon, Wall Street ); Mark Romanek ( Never Let Me Go ); Fernando Meirelles ( The Constant Gardener ); William Monahan ( The Departed ); Jason Moore ( Pitch Perfect, Avenue Q ); and Patrick Marber ( Closer, Notes On A Scandal ). Having joined Endeavor’s mailroom shortly after the agency was founded, he was promoted to agent two years later. His promotion to partner culminated his nine-year journey from mailroom to partnership of the former agency. Donnelly was honored by The Hollywood Reporter in its 2004 Next Generation of Hollywood leaders feature. He supports such organizations as Autism Speaks, and is a member of the LA Conservancy. He is also on the Board of the Noreen Fraser Foundation, a national, non-profit, philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles that raises funds for breakthrough research that advances precision medicine for the prevention and treatment of women’s cancers. Donnelly graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, and spent a year studying abroad at Oxford University. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he currently resides in LA. Brett Ratner Executive Producer Brett Ratner is one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers. His diverse films resonate with audiences worldwide and have grossed over $2 billion at the global box office. Ratner began his career directing music videos before making his feature directorial debut with Money Talks, starring Charlie Sheen and Chris Tucker. He followed with the blockbuster Rush Hour and its successful sequels. Ratner also directed The Family Man , Red Dragon , After the Sunset, X-Men: The Last Stand , Tower Heist and Hercules . He produced Horrible Bosses and its sequel, Mirror Mirror , and the documentaries Catfish , the Emmy®-nominated Woody Allen – A Documentary for the American Masters series, I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale and Night Will Fall , the story of Alfred Hitchcock’s never released Holocaust documentary. Ratner executive produced and directed the Golden Globe-nominated television series Prison Break , which ran for four seasons on Fox. Ratner, along with his business partner James Packer, formed RatPac Entertainment, a film finance production and media company, in 2013. RatPac has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. and joined with Dune Capital to co-finance over 75 films including Gravity , The Lego Movie and American Sniper . Internationally, RatPac and Warner Bros. have formed a joint venture content fund with China’s Shanghai Media Group to finance local Chinese content. In partnership with New Regency, RatPac also finances the development and production of Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. Upcoming RatPac projects include Truth , starring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett, I Saw the Light , starring Tom Hiddleston, and the untitled Howard Hughes project, written, directed, produced and starring Warren Beatty. In addition to strongly supporting ADL, Ratner is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance and serves on the Dean’s Council of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He also sits on the boards of Chrysalis, Best Buddies and Do Something. James Packer Executive Producer James Packer is the chairman of Crown Limited, one of Australia’s largest resort and entertainment groups. Crown has properties and investments in Melbourne, Perth, Macau and London with a market capitalization of approximately $12 billion. He is also co-chair of Melco Crown Entertainment. Packer is the former executive chairman of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) and Consolidated Media Holdings, which predominantly owned media interests across a range of platforms. Packer, along with his business partner Brett Ratner, formed RatPac Entertainment, a film finance production and media company, in 2013. RatPac has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. and joined with Dune Capital to co-finance over 75 films including Gravity , The Lego Movie and American Sniper . Internationally, Warner Bros. and RatPac have formed a joint venture content fund with China’s Shanghai Media Group to finance local Chinese content. In partnership with New Regency, RatPac also finances the development and production of Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. Packer is also a major shareholder in Australia’s Network Ten, the South Sydney Rugby League Football Club, the Chinese online employment company Zhoapin Pty Ltd, amongst other productive investments. Through the Packer Family Foundation and the Crown Resorts Foundation, he has contributed significantly to the arts, community welfare, education, health care and the environment in Australia. Michael Kantor Executive Producer and American Masters series Executive Producer For more than two decades, award-winning filmmaker Michael Kantor has created outstanding arts programs for television. He joined American Masters as the series’ executive producer in April 2014 during its 28 th season on PBS, and founded its theatrical imprint American Masters Pictures in January 2016. American Masters Pictures was represented by three films at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival: Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You , Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise and Richard Linklater – dream is destiny . Prior to joining American Masters , his PBS documentary series Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle (2013), hosted by Liev Schreiber, was nominated for an Emmy Award. Random House published the companion book. Kantor’s Peabody Award-winning film Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy (2013) aired as part of the Great Performances series on PBS. Narrated by Joel Grey, it included performances by Matthew Broderick, Kelli O’Hara, David Hyde Pierce, Marc Shaiman and many other Broadway talents. In 2012, Kantor produced The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater with Michael Tilson Thomas, which aired on PBS and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy. Kantor served as executive producer of the special Give Me the Banjo , hosted by Steve Martin, and created Make ’Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America (2009), the critically acclaimed six-part documentary series hosted by Billy Crystal. His script for episode four, When I’m Bad, I’m Better: The Groundbreakers , co-authored with Laurence Maslon, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. His landmark six-part series Broadway: The American Musical was hosted by Julie Andrews and honored with the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series in 2005. That same year, he created three hours of DVD extras for 20 th Century Fox’s 40 th anniversary release of The Sound of Music . Kantor wrote, directed and produced the award-winning profile American Masters: Quincy Jones: In the Pocket . With Stephen Ives, he co-directed Cornerstone: An Interstate Adventure for HBO, and produced The West (executive producer Ken Burns). His 20 years of work in documentaries include projects as varied as EGG: the arts show , Coney Island , The Donner Party , Margaret Sanger and Ric Burns’ New York series. As a writer, Kantor created Lullaby of Broadway: Opening Night on 42 nd Street , co-authored the companion books to Broadway (Bulfinch) and Make ’Em Laugh (Grand Central Publishing) and has published numerous essays and articles.