Dawn Porter
Dawn Porter is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has appeared on ESPN, Netflix, HBO, PBS, and Discovery. Her latest film, Luther: Never Too Much, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it earned accolades from critics and audiences alike.
Her recent films include The Lady Bird Diaries, a groundbreaking, all-archival documentary about Lady Bird Johnson; a docuseries Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court; and a four-part ESPN documentary series 37 Words examining landmark civil rights legislation granting women the equal opportunity to play sports.
Other recent projects include the documentary Vernon Jordan: Make It Plain which explores Vernon Jordan’s rise from the segregated South to become one of the most influential African American thought leaders in America; John Lewis: Good Trouble, which explores late Congressman John Lewis’ pivotal role in the Civil Rights movement and decades of political and social activism; and The Way I See It, about White House photojournalist Pete Souza.
Porter also directed and produced the acclaimed four-hour Netflix original series Bobby Kennedy for President, which was released in 2018,and Trapped which explored laws regulating abortion clinics in the South won the special jury social-impact prize at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, in addition to a Peabody and numerous other awards.
Dawn also directed and produced Spies of Mississippi, a critically-acclaimed historical documentary that was part of the Independent Lens series on PBS. In 2015 Dawn directed and produced Rise: The Promise of My Brother’s Keeper, a film for The Discovery Channel chronicling President Obama’s program to help young men of color succeed.
Dawn has been commissioned to create films for the Center for Investigative Reporting, Time and Essence Magazines, The New York Times Op Docs, and Amazon. Her work has received generous support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Film Institute, Chicken & Egg Pictures and other esteemed organizations. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Directors Guild of America.