05/19/2026
👏👏Welcome our new 2027 Festival Judge! 👏👏
Elizabeth Leiter is a documentary filmmaker telling nuanced, emotionally resonant stories that challenge perspectives and connect audiences to the world around them.
Elizabeth made her directorial debut with Frontline’s “The Abortion Divide,” an intimate portrait of women navigating deeply personal decisions. She went on to direct “Jane Goodall: The Hope,” for National Geographic and Disney+ and earned multiple honors, including an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Nature Programming, a Critics’ Choice nomination for Best First Documentary Feature, and a Producers Guild of America nomination for Television Feature.
Her film, “399: Queen of the Tetons” opened the 2024 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Chronicling the life of the world’s most famous grizzly bear, the film captures the complex intersection of wilderness and human encroachment. A broadcast version aired on PBS and received an Emmy nomination.
Elizabeth has also brought her storytelling to series work as series director for Hulu’s “Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi: Holiday Edition,” which won a James Beard Award and received a Television Academy Honor for inspiring social change. Her producing credits include the Peabody-nominated PBS special “Rising Against Asian Hate: One Day in March,” National Geographic’s “Parched,” and the Sundance-winning feature “This Is Home: A Refugee Story.”
Born and raised in South Carolina, she now lives in Brooklyn, always curious about the stories that connect us.
