CORI SHEPHERD STERN (PRODUCER/WRITER) is an Academy Award nominated producer focused on both documentary and fiction film projects. Her most recent film, Bending the Arc, explores the epic arc of the global health rights movement through the intimate story of the extraordinary team who led the fight.
Her credits include box office and critical success Warm Bodies, released by Summit, which originated from an unpublished short story by writer Isaac Marion discovered by Cori. She also produced Open Heart, nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject of the 85th Academy Awards. The film followed eight children on a perilous journey to get high-risk surgery at Africa’s only high-tech, free-of-charge heart surgery hospital. The film made its US broadcast debut on HBO and internationally on ARTE Germany/France.
Current projects include a narrative feature film based on a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalism series, in partnership with ROCKLIN|FAUST (SPOTLIGHT). Additional projects include The Arizona Project with Miramax and Adaptive Entertainment, a narrative feature about the historic collaborative investigation by 35 journalists following the murder of journalist Don Bolles. Cori has also executive produced two virtual reality films: Collisions, which premiered at Davos and Sundance, and Francis, which premiered at the World Bank and WHO in support of world body policy change for global mental health.
In addition to film, her experience includes hands-on work as a social change strategist and social entrepreneur. She appeared in the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award winning documentary Sonita, working to help the young woman/rapper escape child marriage in Afghanistan and pursue her art. Cori’s social justice projects have been featured on BBC, NPR, The Today Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She has been a Media Advisor as part of the Skoll Foundation and Sundance Documentary Film Programs, well as a speaker at international conferences including the Skoll World Forum Stories of Change project—and the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival. She was the architect of the highly effective impact campaign for Open Heart—which resulted in a historic financial commitment and specific action plan to eradicate rheumatic heart disease in Rwanda through a public-private partnership of Skoll Foundation and the Government of Rwanda.
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