The Filmmakers
Kief Davidson
Director, Producer
Urban Landscapes was founded by award winning documentary and commercials director Kief Davidson.
Kief recently completed OPEN HEART, which took him and a small crew to the heart of Rwanda and Sudan. They followed eight children on a perilous journey to get high-risk surgery at Africa’s only high-tech, free-of-charge heart surgery hospital. He is concurrently filming a companion film about Dr. Paul Farmer and his organization Partners In Health, executive produced by Matt Damon and Damon Lindelof in collaboration with the Sundance Institute, Skoll Foundation and Tribeca Gucci.
He’s had international success from the award-winning feature-length documentaries, Kassim the Dream and The Devil’s Miner.
Kassim the Dream, about a former child soldier turned boxing champion of the World, premiered at the Tribeca film festival and won over a dozen international film festivals, including AFI, IDFA and Silver Docs. A co-production with ARTE Germany/France, the film was theatrically released by IFC Films.
Kief’s first feature, The Devil’s Miner, made its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival and won over 15 awards at international film festivals including Tribeca, Hot Docs, Chicago and Woodstock. The Devil’s Miner sold to over 45 countries and screened theatrically in over 300 cinemas across Europe and the USA.
He began his filmmaking career as editor on the Academy Award-nominated documentary, Blood Ties: The Life and Work of Sally Mann. He is the recipient of two Emmy nominations for his editing work with National Geographic and earned the International Monitor Award for Best Editing on the journalistic film, What’s News?. He then went on to direct and produce documentaries for The Discovery Channel, ABC News, PBS, ARTE and A&E.
He is represented by Believe Media for commercials, with work including projects for American Express, Absolut, Conde Naste, Kohl’s, Secret, GE and Cadillac.
Kief is a member of the Director’s Guild of America and is based in Los Angeles, California.
https://www.kiefdavidson.com
Cori Shepherd Stern
Producer
Cori Shepherd Stern is a writer and producer, working in both documentary and narrative film.
In addition to OPEN HEART, she is currently producing a feature documentary in collaboration with the Sundance Institute, Skoll Foundation and The Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund about the revolutionary health care organization Partners In Health, also directed by Kief Davidson. Her other film projects include the upcoming major feature film release Warm Bodies directed by Jonathan Levine for Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate, and The Arizona Project for Miramax.
Beyond film, Cori is known for her work as a social change strategist and as a co-founder of STRONGHEART, an international residential community and accelerated learning lab for exceptional young people from extreme life circumstances across the globe including former child slaves, child soldiers, refugees, and other young survivors of conflict or poverty. The program - which has been called “R&D for brilliance in unlikely places” - combines groundbreaking neuroscience, social and personal change theory, and community psychology to affect significant change and create future influencers and advocates from exceptionally challenging backgrounds.
Cori’s work has been covered by BBC, CNN, NPR, and National Geographic among others. She was named O Magazine’s “Good Guy of the Month” and ABC World News “Person of the Week.”