Dan Partland

Dan Partland is a veteran Documentary Producer and Director for Film & Television. His work includes several landmark Nonfiction Films and Series of the past two decades. He has twice won the Emmy for Best Nonfiction Series and been twice nominated, Nonfiction Producer of the Year, by the Producers Guild of America.

Partland cut his teeth in film, apprenticing with cinema verité pioneer Albert Maysles before launching his own New York based indie film collective, OTHER PICTURES (OPIX), where he produced numerous independent features, both scripted and documentary.

While at OPIX, Partland partnered with first-time director Todd Solondz to produce Solondz' debut feature WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE, which went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and become a cult classic. Next Partland collaborated with first time director Aiyana Elliott on, THE BALLAD OF RAMBLIN' JACK; an intimate and personal portrait of her legendary father and the experience of growing up a folk singer's daughter. BALLAD went on to win the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and be recognized as a genre-defining film in the 1st Person Documentary space.

In 2000 Partland joined forces with Academy Award nominated filmmaker RJ Cutler to create the ground-breaking, 13-part documentary series AMERICAN HIGH, for which Partland won the Emmy for Best Non-Fiction Series. In AMERICAN HIGH, Partland & Cutler used an authentic cinema verité process embedding with high school students in suburban Chicago for one year. Partland & his team taught their teen subjects to create their own intimate video diaries and to play a key role in documenting their own lives.

Partland went on to produce numerous documentary series, including A&E's revolutionary series INTERVENTION, for which Partland was Executive Producer & Showrunner for 14 seasons. Partland led the series, producing over 150 episodes and garnering countless awards and accolades, including the Emmy for Best Documentary Series. More importantly, INTERVENTION has been credited with popularizing the concept of compassionate interventions, redefining the existing narratives on drug abuse, and moving the national discussion of addiction from one of a law enforcement crisis to one of a public health crisis.

Partland's passion for historical documentaries began with his work as the Showrunner and a Director of the award-winning CNN series, THE SIXTIES, which pioneered a new, immersive style for archival docs. In 2016 Partland launched the production company, DOC SHOP, which produced the Netflix Series, AFFLICTED, embedding in the intimate struggle of seven people suffering from elusive illnesses, the archival series AMERICAN STYLE for CNN, and the host-led documentary series AMERICAN RACE for TNT, which followed basketball legend, Charles Barkley, on a regional tour of the country to discover the truth of race in America following uprisings in Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD.

In 2020 Partland Independently produced and directed #UNFIT: The Psychology of Donald Trump, a deep-dive into the psychology of the 45th President and the rise of authoritarianism in the United States. The film, which was released in advance of the 2020 Presidential election, quietly became iTunes' best-selling documentary of all time.

In 2022, Partland was tapped by Academy Award winning Director/Producer, Rob Reiner, to direct a feature documentary about the current rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States. Joining forces with renown New York Times columnist Katherine Stewart, the film, GOD & COUNTRY, goes deep into the history of the American Christianity and its role in our civic and cultural identity. The film unpacks the drift of evangelicalism from a religious to a largely political movement and its centrality to the January 6th insurrection.

Partland is in post-production on a feature-doc entitled, #UNTRUTH, a second installment in a series of works about the current threats to democracy.