About Filmmaker Kate Novack

Kate Novack is an Emmy-nominated writer, director and producer of documentary films. 

Her most recent film, Hysterical Girl (New York Times Op-Docs, Grasshopper Film, 2020), revisits the only major case history that Sigmund Freud produced of a female patient, and considers the corrosive legacy of his theory of hysteria, 125 years later. Hysterical Girl was shortlisted for an Academy Award and nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a documentary. New Yorker critic Richard Brody described it as "extraordinary...strikes at the very foundations of the field of psychology, and the historical failure to believe victims which has not yet been righted." Following its selection as a world premiere by SXSW, the film was acquired by The New York Times’ Op-Docs, the short film arm of the paper’s opinion page, and Grasshopper Film.

Kate’s feature The Gospel According to Andre (Magnolia Pictures, 2018) was named one of the top ten Queer films of the year by Indiewire and nominated for best LGBTQ documentary of the year by the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. An intimate portrait of the legendary fashion editor Andre Leon Talley, Gospel traces Andre’s formative years growing up in the American South in the era of Jim Crow and his experience over four decades working in the fashion industry. The New York Times called the film “a cinematic ride” and Variety dubbed it “a deeply loving, frequently beautiful testament to the former Vogue editor who rose from humble beginnings in North Carolina to become arguably the high fashion world’s first major African-American tastemaker.” Following its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, Gospel won Best Documentary at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival and Best Feature Length Fashion Film at the Canadian International Fashion Film Festival.

A former print journalist, Kate was a writer and producer on Page One: Inside the New York Times (Magnolia Pictures, Participant Media and History Films, 2011), an urgent portrait of The New York Times’ late media columnist David Carr and the existential challenges facing the news media. After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, Page One went on to become one of the highest-grossing theatrical documentaries of the year. CNN described it as “a film anyone who cares about the future should see” and it was nominated for two News & Documentary Emmys and a Critics Choice Award.

Over the past 15 years, Kate has worked in a producing or story role on several films, including the Emmy-nominated Ivory Tower (CNN Films/Participant Media/Samuel Goldwyn Films, 2014), The First Monday in May (Magnolia Pictures, 2016) and A Table In Heaven (HBO, 2008).