Donna Kanter is the owner of The Kanter Company, Inc., a team that has launched 14 reality series. She directed the pilot episode of Rescue 911 on CBS, created the first drama-reality hybrid series, FBI: The Untold Stories on ABC, and directed the series Inside The Yellow Line on TruTV, Cold Case Cops on Discovery, and numerous pilots about unique crimes, including a 2010 presentation on a special FBI team for A&E.
She is currently developing The E Team and writing the feature film Friends for Life. In 2008, Donna wrote and directed F.L.I.P. Mysteries, a reality series about Internet private eyes, for WE tv, and directed the documentary LUNCH, featuring seven comedy writers and the waitress who inevitably steps on their punchlines. She is also directing a sequel to LUNCH with 12 TV legends.
Donna has worked on over 25 non-fiction programs, including Pope John Paul II's Vatican, The White House: Inside the Gates, Lucy: Queen of Comedy, Secrets of the Circus, U.S. Missiles, and transportation crimes on Discovery; four seasons of Badge of Courage on TruTV, Save Our Streets, and the pilot Payback on NBC. She is also executive producer and writer of three MOWs: Aftermath on CBS, The Flood, and The Last Victim on NBC.
Raised in an atmosphere of comedy writers and publishers, Donna was drawn to labor and investigative reporting at KING-TV Seattle and then Newsweek. She became the ABC foreign editor and senior producer for David Brinkley. Her working relationships with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have enabled her to hold exclusive rights to the most unusual investigative cases, units, and personal stories of our times.
A graduate of UC Berkeley, Donna earned her M.A. from the University of Florence/Italy and Middlebury College. She taught Italian at UCLA and then was admitted to Yale to complete her doctorate on the Italian Resistance, but left academic studies to work for Ralph Nader and the FCC.
As a member of the DGA Workshop, Donna wrote and directed Friends for Life, based on the 2009 release of the Paulist Press book that she edited about feature-film stillman Louis Goldman and the Italian cardinal and priests who saved his life during WWII.
Donna is a two-time Emmy recipient, honoree of the AFI's Directing Workshop for Women, and a member of the WGA, DGA, and AFTRA. She was Governor (Writers Peer Group) of the TV Academy from 2000-2005, was elected Governors' representative to the Executive Committee, and ATAS Treasurer from 2005-2010.
