Postmortem

Postmortem

Director and Producer Marilyn Ness, Producer Beth Levison

Postmortem, a hybrid documentary film and theater project, is a boundary-pushing crime drama about an abused girl who didn’t tell her childhood secret—and the woman she becomes, who does.


Marilyn Ness

Marilyn Ness

Director, Producer

Marilyn Ness is an Emmy, Peabody, and DuPont Award-winning documentary director and producer. As director, Ness explores social justice stories from multiple viewpoints. She directed Charm City, an observational documentary exploring the divide between police and citizens, premiering at Tribeca 2018, shortlisted for the 2019 Academy Award, broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens, and nominated for an Emmy. Her directorial debut, Bad Blood, broadcast on PBS in 2011, chronicles the anatomy of a medical disaster. As a former partner at Big Mouth Productions, Ness produced Kirsten Johnson’s groundbreaking films, Dick Johnson Is Dead and Cameraperson, Netflix’s Becoming, and Dawn Porter’s Trapped. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

Beth Levison

Beth Levison

Producer

Beth Levison is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy and Peabody-winning producer committed to stories about underdogs, artists, and the struggles of our time. Producing credits include A Photographic Memory, which won the 2025 Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award (A 2025 Zeitgeist/Kino Lorber Release), The Martha Mitchell Effect (2022, Netflix) and Storm Lake (2021, Independent Lens). She executive produced two-time BIFA-winning Grand Theft Hamlet (2025, MUBI), With Peter Bradley (2024, PBS), and others. Increasingly, her work intersects theater and film.

Project logline and bios courtesy of the grantees.