Katy Gale Chevigny (born October 11, 1968)[1] is an American documentary filmmaker. She has produced or directed more than 30 documentary films and won a number of awards for her work.
Early life and education
Chevigny was born in 1968 or 1969 to Bell Gale Chevigny and Paul G. Chevigny. Her father is a law professor emeritus at NYULaw, where he headed its human rights clinic. Her mother is a literature professor emeritus at Purchase College and edited Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing (1999). Chevigny graduated cum laude from Yale University.[1]
Career
Chevigny was a social worker who started out in film in Chicago and then moved to New York City to start Big Mouth Productions in 1997 with a friend from college, Julia Pimsleur.[2] Pimsleur left the company in 2002.[2] As of 2004 Chevigny's partner in the company was Dallas Brennan.[2] By 2022, Marilyn Ness had joined the company.[3]
With Kirsten Johnson she co-directed Deadline (2004), which won a Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award.[4] The film, an examination of Illinois governor George Ryan's decision to commute the death sentences of everyone awaiting execution in the state, was purchased and broadcast on Dateline NBC, a rare example of a major commercial network acquiring an independent documentary.[5][6][7][a]
She co-directed with Ross Kauffman the feature-length documentary E-Team, which won Best Cinematography at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival[9] and was released as a Netflix Original in October 2014.[10] She produced the 2014 documentary 1971.[6]
She directed one of six segments of Hard Earned, which aired on Al Jazeera America in 2015 and won an Alfred I. duPont Award.[11]
Two films she co-produced have been nominated for an Emmy, in 2020 Becoming and in 2021 Dick Johnson Is Dead,[14] which also won the Special Jury Award for Innovation in Nonfiction Storytelling at Sundance in 2020.[15]
^"Class Notes". Harvard Law Bulletin. Vol. 63. 2012. p. 58. Archived from the original on 2023-03-18. Retrieved 2023-04-27. On July 23, Jack Smith and Katy Chevigny were married on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York by the Honorable Nicholas G. Garaufis. Smith is serving as the chief of the public integrity section of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where the couple lives.
^"Masters/Tri Q&A: Jack Smith". Nashville Aquatic Club (Interview). January 31, 2018. Archived from the original on November 20, 2022. Retrieved November 20, 2022.
