Donna Kanter
Donna Kanter is a writer-producer-director of films and television series, based on true stories and events. As owner of The Donna Kanter Company, Inc., she has been executive producer, writer, or director of 21 TV shows on subjects ranging from Pope John Paul II’s Vatican, The White House: Inside the Gates, to Secrets of the Circus, the Gardner Museum Heist, the Desilu Empire (Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz), U.S. missiles, transportation crimes, numerous FBI and police procedurals, and pop culture phenomena.
In August 2008, Donna wrote, produced, and directed F.L.I.P Mysteries: Women on the Case for WE tv, based on female legal and investigative professionals (F.L.I.P.) who work in a “virtual community” to solve crimes with the most formidable police departments in the country.
Donna directed LUNCH, featuring 7 classic comedy writers who lunch together every two weeks while their waitress inevitably appears just in time to step on their punch lines. The documentary made its theatrical debut in August 2007, and was a WGA Film Society selection on August 15, 2008. Her second short film, FRIENDS FOR LIFE, screened for the Directors Guild on September 3.
In 2006 Donna wrote and directed Inside The Yellow Line for Court TV, based on the FBI’s elite Evidence Response Teams. In 2007 she completed episodes #2 and #3, The Tell-Tale Bomb and Revenge Ride.
Donna also created and directed Cold Case Cops for the Discovery Channel, and in 2005 wrote and directed a second episode featuring the same two Newark detectives (Case Re-opened: Avenging the Victims). She has maintained a working relationship with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies for 15 years, enabling her company to hold exclusive rights to the most unusual investigative units and cases of our times.
In 2003, Donna was executive producer and a writer of her third television movie, Long Way to Home, for CBS, and her company produced four seasons of Badge of Courage for Court TV, with Jerry Orbach, Dennis Franz, and Gordon Clapp hosting.
A team member that has launched 14 series pilots, Donna was creator and supervising producer of the ABC reality-drama hybrid series, FBI: The Untold Stories (ABC). She created the 2000 comedy pilot Payback (NBC and RTI/Italy), wrote the pilot Injustice For all (NBC), and was Supervising Producer of the NBC syndicated series, Save Our Streets (1999-2002). Donna also wrote and directed The Bank of America Shoot Out, aka Crosshairs of Fire (Discovery), the syndicated pilots, Strange Universe and The Crusaders (Buena Vista), and directed the pilot, Rescue, 911 (CBS).
Kanter grew up in an atmosphere of comedy writers, and gravitated towards investigative reporting, beginning her career in Seattle as a labor reporter, producer and Executive Producer of KING TV News, then became senior producer for David Brinkley, for Newsweek, as foreign editor at ABC and Good Morning America, and investigative producer for KCBS.
A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Donna completed her M.A. in Romance Languages from the University of Florence. Completing her PhD requirements at UCLA, she was to begin her thesis on the Italian Resistance at Yale when she went to work for Ralph Nader’s organizations as a researcher.
Donna edited and wrote the foreword to Amici Per La Vita (Friends For Life), the story of renowned feature film still photographer Louis Goldman, and the cardinal of Florence and his priests who risked their lives to save the young teenager during the Holocaust. Paulist Press will publish the English-language book in November 2008. Donna is adapting it into a feature and documentary.
A two-time Emmy winner, Donna Kanter is a member of the Writers Guild, Directors Guild, is a founding member of New York Women in Film, and fellow/recipient of the AFI's Directing Workshop for Women. She values her working relationships with artists, producers, members of the crafts, and agents.
In 2006 Donna completed two terms/4 years as governor of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences/Writers’ Peer Group. She was elected Governors’ Appointee to the Executive Committee (2004-2006), and is currently Treasurer of the TV Academy (2006-2010). She has also been a member of the design team for the Emmys for 5 years.
She produced REAL COPS, REAL DOCS for the Television Academy in October 2006, IS THE MOW DOA? in March 2007, and TELEVISION: THE NEW INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER on October 21, 2008.
Contact: info@kantercompany.com