Nancy Buirski, ‘Loving’ producer, dies at 78

Nancy Buirski, a PGA Award winner who launched the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and produced the 2016 movie Loving, which was based on her documentary, passed away on August 29.

The announcement was revealed by her firm Augusta Films without any other information.

Buirski started her career working for The New York Times as a photographer and photo editor. In 1998, she launched the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, which she would run for ten years.

The Loving Story (2011), a documentary about Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who wed in 1958 without being aware that their union was forbidden in Virginia, where they lived, was her first directing gig. Loving v. Virginia, the case in which they were ultimately successful, was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967.

The movie won numerous awards, including a Peabody Award and a News & Documentary Emmy, and was nominated for an Oscar. 

It served as the model for the movie Loving, in which Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton played the Lovings.

Negga received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, while Jeff Nichols, who co-wrote the film alongside Buirski, received a Spirit Award nomination. In 2017, Buirski and Loving received a Stanley Kramer Award from the PGA.

Buirski’s frequent collaborator and producer, Susan Margolin, said about her demise, “The field has lost a giant today.”

“Nancy was a completely original thinker and a visionary. With every film she pushed the limits of the art form with her kaleidoscopic, unique approach to storytelling. She was an exceptionally generous supporter of other artists in the field, and will be mourned by so many. We are devastated by this loss,” she added.