US factual firm ITVS appoints Sundance’s Carrie Lozano as CEO & president

Carrie Lozano

US non-profit factual producer and financier ITVS has appointed the Sundance Institute’s Carrie Lozano as president and CEO to succeed Sally Jo Fifer.

Lozano served as director of documentary film and artist programs at the Sundance Institute, where she worked to support boundary-breaking filmmakers across the globe. Her appointment follows a five-month search by ITVS for a new chief after Fifer exited after 22 years at the company.

She starts at ITVS on 7 August, where she will “continue to protect independent artists’ voices, editorial control and copyright” while working to promote nonfiction storytelling as “an essential strategy for public media to reach new and diverse audiences.”

Prior to Sundance, Lozano designed and directed the International Documentary Association (IDA)’s Enterprise Documentary Fund, through which she supported filmmakers with funding and journalistic resources on projects such as the ITVS-funded titles Through the Night, One Child Nation, and Always in Season. At IDA, she also led the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund, which focuses on films about environmental justice and other social issues.

Earlier in her career, Lozano was an executive at Al Jazeera America and a senior producer of the investigative series Fault Lines.

Lozano also produced the ITVS-funded and Academy Award-nominated documentary The Weather Underground; a live cinema piece called Utopia In Four Movements; and produced, directed, and edited Reporter Zero, while her most recent film is the 2016 documentary The Ballad of Fred Hersch.

“Carrie’s integrity as an investigative journalist, her leadership experience, and her fierce commitment to filmmakers and democracy will lift our field, partners and incredible staff for many years to come,” said ITVS board chair Garry Denny.