Leigh Kittay Joins Black Bear As Head Of Film; Ben Stillman Heads TV

Leigh Kittay has joined Black Bear as Head of Film. She most recently served that role for Noah Hawley’s 26 Keys, and was exec producer of Lucy in the Sky. Before that she worked at Parkes+MacDonald Productions and Bad Robot.

Ben Stillman, who has been at Black Bear since the company’s inception, will transition from feature films, where he was SVP, to run Black Bear’s newly created independent TV studio — Black Bear Television – as Head of TV.  Black Bear TV recently announced it had optioned the rights to Irish writer Naoise Dolan’s debut novel Exciting Times, and has already commissioned close to a dozen projects this year under Stillman’s direction. Stillman had helped steer Black Bear’s feature film slate for principal Teddy Schwarzman.

Black Bear also promoted Michael Heimler to Head of Production and Finance, upped from VP Production & Operations.

Black Bear’s president and CEO Schwarzman said: “I have known Leigh for over five years, and have always been impressed by her taste, creativity and manner of doing business. She champions character-centric and commercial content from singular writers and directors, and I’m thrilled to welcome her to Black Bear. I’m also incredibly excited to continue my collaboration with Ben Stillman, who has helped shape the creative direction of Black Bear from Day 1 and is stepping into Black Bear’s highest priority of growing the TV arm’s increasing global footprint. Finally, I’m thrilled to promote Michael Heimler, who everyone has come to rely upon for his business acumen, deal structuring and oversight of brass-tacks physical production; I’m thrilled to continue to grow the company together.”