Tia Lessin

Tia Lessin is an Academy Award–nominated filmmaker and the recipient of a duPont-Columbia Award and three Emmys for her work on The Janes (2022, HBO), about the underground network of abortion providers in 1960s Chicago. Tia produced and directed (together with Carl Deal) the Oscar-nominated Hurricane Katrina survival story Trouble the Water (2009, HBO), winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize; the Oscar-shortlisted Citizen Koch (2013, Netflix), exploring the rise of the Tea Party in the Midwest; and, most recently, Steal This Story, Please!, about independent journalist Amy Goodman, which premiered at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival and has won eight festival Audience Choice Awards. Tia received the Sidney Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism for Behind the Labels, about the labor trafficking of garment workers.

Tia served as supervising producer on Michael Moore’s Palme d’Or–winning Fahrenheit 9/11, the highest-grossing documentary of all time, and his Academy Award–winning Bowling for Columbine (2003), produced Moore’s Where to Invade Next (2015) and earned two Primetime Emmy nominations (and one arrest) for producing the critically acclaimed television series TV Nation (NBC) and The Awful Truth (Bravo, BBC).

Tia is a recipient of the Ridenhour Prize, the Women of Worth Vision Award from L’Oréal Paris and Women in Film, the Reel Women Direct Award for Excellence in Directing by a Woman, the Black Lily Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Woodstock Film Festival’s Art of Change Award.