Leslye Davis is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and journalist from Kentucky. Her work focuses on social issues like the American opioid crisis, the proliferation of mass shootings, and structural inequality. Davis’s first feature film, Father Soldier Son, was directed and produced alongside Catrin Einhorn for The New York Times and Netflix. The documentary follows one military family over the course of ten years, becoming an intergenerational exploration of values and American manhood in the aftermath of war. It was selected for documentary competition at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the award for best editing. Davis was named among the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media. In 2016, she was on the team of New York Times journalists who were awarded the Overseas Press Club’s David Kaplan Award for their coverage of the ISIS-led terrorist attacks in Paris. Her work has been recognized by World Press Photo and Pictures of the Year International. She was nominated for an Emmy and a Gerald Loeb Award for explanatory journalism, and was part of a team of Times journalists who were finalists for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. In 2021, Davis left The New York Times to focus on her transition to directing.
