Biography
Writer-producer-director Donna Kanter is owner of The Kanter Company, Inc. A team member who has launched 14 reality series, Donna directed the pilot Rescue 911 (CBS), created the first drama-reality hybrid series, FBI: The Untold Stories (ABC), the series Inside The Yellow Line (TruTV), Cold Case Cops (Discovery), numerous pilots about unique crimes, including a 2010 presentation on a special FBI team for A&E. She is developing The E Team and writing the feature, Friends for Life.
In 2008, Donna wrote and directed F.L.I.P. Mysteries, about Internet private eyes, for WE tv, and the documentary LUNCH, featuring seven comedy writers and the waitress who inevitably steps on their punch lines. She is directing a LUNCH sequel with 12 TV legends. Other credits among over 25 non fiction programs include Pope John Paul II's Vatican, The White House: Inside the Gates, Lucy: Queen of Comedy, Secrets of the Circus, U.S. Missiles, and transportation crimes (Discovery); four seasons of Badge of Courage (TruTV), Save Our Streets and the pilot Payback (NBC). She is executive producer/ writer of three MOWs: Aftermath (CBS), The Flood, and The Last Victim (NBC).
Raised in an atmosphere of comedy writers and publishers, Donna gravitated to labor and investigative reporting at KING-TV Seattle, then Newsweek. She became ABC foreign editor and senior producer for David Brinkley. Her working relationships with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have enabled her to hold exclusive rights to the most unusual investigative cases, units, and personal stories of our times.
A graduate of UC Berkeley, Donna earned her M.A. from the University of Florence/Italy and Middlebury College. She taught Italian at UCLA and then, admitted to Yale to complete her doctorate on the Italian Resistance, she left academic studies to work for Ralph Nader and the FCC.
As a member of the DGA Workshop, Donna wrote and directed Friends for Life, based on the 2009 release of the Paulist Press book that she edited about feature-film stillman Louis Goldman and the Italian cardinal and priests who saved his life during WWII.
Donna is a two-time Emmy recipient, honoree of the AFI's Directing Workshop for Women, and a member of the WGA, DGA, and AFTRA. She was Governor (Writers Peer Group) of the TV Academy from 2000-2005, was elected Governors' representative to the Executive Committee, and ATAS Treasurer from 2005-2010.
