Park Pictures has signed documentary and commercial director Kief Davidson for exclusive international representation. Davidson earned a Best Short Subject Oscar nomination in 2013 for Open Heart, which centers on eight Rwandan children who embark on a life-or-death journey to Sudan in order to have high-risk heart surgery performed at The Salam Centre, Africa’s only hospital offering free cardiac procedures for families in need.
Davidson has to his credit in the ad arena work for such brands as GE, Toyota, Absolut and Facebook. His previous commercial/branded content production company roost was B-Reel and prior to that, Believe Media.
In collaboration with the Lego Company, Davidson and Daniel Junge teamed to direct A Lego Brickumentary, a Radius/Weinstein Company feature documentary which made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014.
“Kief is a great fit for Park Pictures because of his talent for marrying creative filmmaking with meaningful stories. He impressed us with his many accomplishments in the documentary film world. We believe his upcoming feature film, IVORY, will be transformative, not only to the craft of documentary filmmaking but also to the world of wildlife conservation, in particular the widespread slaughter of African elephants,” said Park Pictures’ co-owner and executive producer Jackie Kelman Bisbee.
IVORY (working title) follows undercover intelligence operatives in Africa, Asia and Europe who are taking down the elephant ivory cartels, as activists and rangers fight for the survival of the species. The documentary was produced by Red Bull’s Terra Mater Studios and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions, and co-directed by Davidson and Richard Ladkani. The powerful cinema documentary is slated for theatrical release this fall.
Born in Brooklyn, NY, Davidson is also known for his award-winning films The Devil’s Miner and Kassim the Dream. The latter won the Documentary Award and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2008 AFI Fest while The Devil’s Miner earned directors Davidson and Ladkani a DGA Award nomination in 2006 for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary.
