Tabitha Jackson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1970 or 1971 (age 55–56) |
| Occupations |
|
| Employer | Film Forum |
| Known for | Director of the Sundance Film Festival (2020 to 2022) |
| Title | Director of Film Forum |
| Predecessor | Sonya Chung |
| Spouse |
Kirsten Johnson (m. 2020) |
Tabitha Jackson (born c. 1970) is a British film executive. Since February 2026 she has directed Film Forum, a nonprofit cinema in New York City. She ran the Sundance Film Festival from 2020 to 2022, becoming the first woman and the first person of color to hold that post.
Before joining Sundance Institute in 2013, Jackson spent more than 20 years working in London, at the BBC and then Channel 4, and was an executive producer on Film4 documentaries. She directed the Institute's Documentary Film Program until her appointment as festival director. The Grierson Trust gave her its BBC Grierson Trustees' Award in 2021.
Born in about 1970, Jackson grew up in a village in rural England. Her adoptive parents were white and later divorced. She has described herself as a British woman of African descent, specifically Nigerian, and has said that growing up mixed race in a white family in a rural village taught her to move between groups, an experience she has connected to her interest in documentary and to her view of whose stories get told.[1][2]
Jackson began her career as a researcher, producer and director at the BBC.[3][4] She spent more than 20 years working in London, moving from the BBC to Channel 4, where she was a commissioning editor with responsibility for arts, performance and animation, and later head of arts and performance.[4][5] Her executive producer credits at Film4 include the Nick Cave film 20,000 Days on Earth.[1][6]
Sundance Institute hired Jackson in 2013 to direct its Documentary Film Program, which she led until 2020.[7] The role covered grant-making to documentary filmmakers and the Institute's Edit and Story Lab.[7] She launched its Impact, Engagement and Advocacy initiative, and the Art of Non-Fiction fellowship, which supported filmmakers taking unconventional approaches to the form.[6][8][9] On taking over the program, Jackson said she did not want the genre to become "the preserve of the elite", open only to those who could spend years raising money to make films.[1] In a 2014 keynote at DOC NYC, a year into the job, she argued that nonfiction filmmaking should be conducted in the language of cinema rather than that of grant applications.[8]
Sundance Institute named Jackson festival director in February 2020, succeeding John Cooper after his 11 years in the post.[7][10] No woman and no person of color had headed the festival before.[7] A search drawing 700 applications had preceded it.[7] As director, Jackson reported to the Institute's executive director, Keri Putnam, and oversaw festival operations and the programming team led by Kim Yutani.[7][8]
The pandemic kept both of Jackson's editions largely online. Running seven days from 28 January 2021, the 37th festival offered about 70 features through a purpose-built platform, with in-person screenings at art house cinemas in 28 cities.[1][2] Jackson said the format let the festival reach audiences who could not have traveled to Park City, Utah for geographical, financial or physical reasons.[2] The Omicron surge forced the 2022 edition online after it had been planned as an in-person event.[11]
In June 2022 the Institute announced that Jackson would step down after that year's Sundance Film Festival: London.[11] Eugene Hernandez took the role that September.[12]
In February 2024 the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School named Jackson, alongside Karin Chien and Amy Hobby, to the spring 2024 cohort of its Documentary Film in the Public Interest fellowship.[13] She went on to hold fellowships at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the MIT Open Documentary Lab, and a Rockefeller Foundation residency.[4] At the Open Documentary Lab, where she remained a fellow as of 2026, her research concerned the implications of extended reality and generative artificial intelligence for documentary, and how institutions might respond.[14][15][9][15]
Film Forum, a four-screen nonprofit repertory and arthouse cinema in Manhattan, named Jackson its director in February 2026, and she took up the post on 23 February.[4][16] A national search headed by the board chair, Gray Coleman, and Stella Strazdas produced the appointment.[4][3]
She is the cinema's third director in under three years. Karen Cooper ran it for more than 50 years before stepping down in 2023, and her deputy Sonya Chung, who succeeded her, left at the end of 2025.[4][3][15] Where both predecessors programmed the cinema themselves, Jackson's role carries oversight of programming without day-to-day involvement in it.[15]
In 2022 Jackson sat on the jury of the British Independent Film Awards.[17] That year she also co-created the podcast The Film That Blew My Mind with John Cooper, her predecessor as Sundance festival director.[4][3] Jackson is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has served three terms on its Documentary Branch Executive Committee.[3]
DOC NYC gave Jackson its Leading Light Award at the festival's Visionaries Tribute in 2018.[5][12] The Grierson Trust presented her with the BBC Grierson Trustees' Award at the 2021 British Documentary Awards, held on 10 November at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.[18][19]
Jackson was an executive producer on a number of Film4 documentaries.[18]
| Year | Title | Director | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | The Arbor | Clio Barnard | Executive producer | |
| 2011 | The Story of Film: An Odyssey | Mark Cousins | Executive producer | |
| 2012 | The Imposter | Bart Layton | Executive producer | |
| 2012 | The Pervert's Guide to Ideology | Sophie Fiennes | Executive producer | |
| 2014 | 20,000 Days on Earth | Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard | Executive producer |
Jackson married the documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson on the opening day of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.[6][1][15] She lives near Film Forum in Greenwich Village.[15]
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