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About
Kate Levy is a filmmaker and multimedia artist. Her documentary films, installations, sculptures, texts, and photography series interrogate power structures, political memory, and cultural narratives. She has worked on projects related to water, education, police violence, immigration, and environmental and economic justice. Her work has been exhibited at museums, cultural centers, film festivals, and conferences in the U.S. and internationally.
In 2015, Levy’s work with the ACLU of Michigan helped expose the Flint Water Crisis. She was a 2017 Patagonia Works grant recipient for her feature film WHOSE WATER (New Day Films, 2024) and a 2018 MacDowell Fellow. From 2019 to 2021, Levy served as co-director of the Youth Documentary Workshop at Educational Video Center in New York City. Her 2021 short DETROIT WILL BREATHE was featured in the Ann Arbor Film Festival Off-the-Screen Series and received awards at the Freep Film Festival and the Whistleblower Film Festival. From 2023 to 2024, she was the Stuart B. and Barbara Padnos Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Grand Valley State University, where she produced a series of public art installations about the multinational conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice of Media and Communications at Drew University and working on her second feature, probing her family's multi-generational business auctioning off machines from shuttered factories.
Contact: [email protected] | 646.925.9510 | View CV
Praise
Kate Levy is able to humanize a very complex and painful issue to the broader community. She does it with heart and a unique lens.
Levy resists the tendency of white activists to focus on the bleak realities of poverty and racism, instead using her documentary skills to depict community strength amid exploitative socioeconomic systems.
Whose Water is phenomenal. Powerful. Absolutely revealing. Classy. Impactful. Very timely. Historical. Truth. Compassionate. Compelling. Challenging. Ringing solidarity. Take no prisoners!
Whose Water shoulders a journalistic responsibility that is required for democratic societies to function.”
Detroit Will Breathe is a kick in the chest.
Whose Water is emotionally resonant and thoroughly researched documentary. A must-see film for anyone invested in human rights and environmental equity. The film counters dominant narratives around personal responsibility, exposing how structural forces shape unequal access to water. Whose Water also highlights the power of frontline communities and the role of legislative advocacy in the ongoing struggle for water justice. This film informs AND inspires action.