Nancy Buirski died on August 29. Award-winning director who founded Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Her firm, Augusta Films, announced her death. The cause of death was unknown. Buirski was famous in film. In 2016, she made “Loving,” based on her documentary “The Loving Story.” She directed “Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy,” which premiered in Venice last year.
As a photographer and picture editor for The New York Times, Buirski began his career. She ran the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival for ten years, starting in 1998. She filmed “The Loving Story” documentary on Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. The film earned Peabody and News & Documentary Emmys, among others. It produced the 2016 film “Loving,” which earned Ruth Negga an Oscar for Best Actress and Jeff Nichols a Spirit Award. In 2017, Buirski’s “Loving” won the PGA Stanley Kramer Award.
Buirski directed and made documentaries. Her other notable works include “Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq,” a 2013 American Masters documentary about a polio-paralyzed dancer, and “By Sidney Lumet,” a 2015 documentary about the five-time Oscar-nominated director. She directed and produced “Althea” for American Masters in 2014, “The Rape of Recy Taylor” in 2017, and “A Crime on the Bayou” in 2020.
Cineflix Productions President and Head of Content J.C. Mills commended Buirski. He had recently inked a development contract with her. He stated her superbly written tales, which blended multiple narratives, indicated she loved making movies. Producer Susan Margolin, who worked with Buirski often, said the field lost a giant and innovative thinking. Margolin praised Buirski’s unique storytelling and aid for other artists.
Buirski’s “The Loving Story” was an “unusual telling of a civil rights story.” She compared Mildred and Richard Loving’s effort to live together without shame or exile to the struggles of repressed or exiled people worldwide. They struggled to love each other in the shelter of their family, something she thought many might connect to.
Buirski directed, wrote, and produced. Her final film, “Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy,” was the sole X-rated Best Picture Oscar winner. The Venice Picture Festival premiered the picture last year. It continued to Telluride and other events. Buirski signed with Cineflix Productions a week after the film’s Lido debut.
Nancy Buirski’s death hurts the film industry. Her storytelling, social activism, and artistic experimentation have left an impression. She will be remembered for her films and innovative approach to helping other artists. Filmmakers and spectators will be inspired by her work.
