Beth Levison

Beth Levison is an Academy Award-nominated American independent documentary film producer and director based in New York City. Following a career in unscripted television, she has been in the independent documentary filmmaking trenches for the last 15 years.

Life and career

Levison was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and went to Middlebury College.

Her most recently-completed producing effort, The Martha Mitchell Effect, about Watergate whistleblower and Republican cabinet wife Martha Mitchell, premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, launched on Netflix, and was nominated for a 2023 Academy Award (Best Documentary Short category). Her previous film, Storm Lake, which she directed alongside DP Jerry Risius and also produced, premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2022, and was nominated for a Peabody Award and a 2022 News and Documentary Emmy Award. Her other producing credits include Women in Blue (Independent Lens, 2021), News and Documentary Emmy-nominated Made in Boise (Independent Lens, 2020), News and Documentary Emmy-nominated Personal Statement (PBS, 2018), and 32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide (HBO, 2017).

Levison is the founder of Hazel Pictures and the co-founder of the Documentary Producers Alliance. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was producing faculty with the School of Visual Arts’ Social Documentary Film Program from 2014-2020, and currently teaches as guest faculty at Sarah Lawrence College.

Selected filmography

Awards and nominations