Emily Abt

Selected as one of Variety Magazine's 'Top 10 Directors to Watch', Emily is an ambidextrous filmmaker who has directed five features. Her narrative feature Toe to Toe was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, theatrically released nationwide by Strand. Abt’s screenwriting credits include Toe to Toe, True to the Game, Unborn and Thirsty for which she won the Athena Award.

Abt has shot, produced and directed feature documentaries for Showtime, PBS, OWN, Starz and the Sundance Channel. She is also a seasoned commercial director who has created branded content campaigns for clients such as Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Oracle, Pfizer and Bloomingdales.

Abt's first feature documentary Take It From Me (PBS’s POV series) was created when she was a 22 year-old caseworker in New York City. She then went on to receive her MFA in film directing from Columbia University and was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to make her thesis film. Abt's other feature documentaries include All of Us (Showtime's 2008 World AIDs Day film) and Daddy Don't G" which was executive produced by the actors Omar Epps and Malik Yoba. The film won eight Best Documentary awards and premiered on the Starz network in 2017. In 2018 Abt directed Beyond the Opposite Sex, a documentary feature for Showtime about two transgender people living in rural America. Abt shot and directed the short film Born A Fighter which was commissioned by the genetics testing company 23andMe. It premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.

In 2021 Abt was hired by producer George Rush to co-write the narrative feature comedy Unborn which she is also attached to direct. Her current narrative feature project Thirsty is being produced by Jeff Allard, stars Jamie Neumann and is slated for production in 2022.