Becoming Katharine Graham
Director: George Kunhardt, Teddy Kunhardt Run Time: 91 min. Rating: Not Rated Release Year: 2025
Starring: Carl Bernstein, Gloria Steinem, Katharine Graham, Warren Buffett
A Q&A with the filmmakers, George Kunhardt, Teddy Kunhardt, and Emma Sassoon follows the screening.
Becoming Katharine Graham tells the story of a painfully shy woman’s accidental rise to power and how it changed history.
Born in 1917, Katharine Graham—colloquially known as “Kay”—was raised to adhere to the expectation that men would have careers, and women would raise the family. Kay, like most other women at the time, abided by these societal norms. But the course of her life would drastically change once her father, financier Eugene Meyer, bought a struggling newspaper in 1933.
This struggling newspaper was called The Washington Post, and it was on the brink of collapse. Though the paper’s performance improved after 1933—first under her father’s leadership and then her husband’s—her husband’s sudden passing in 1963 left Kay with a leaderless newspaper and four young children. This reality forced Kay to decide whether to take over the cherished family business herself or sell it.
Although a self-proclaimed “doormat wife,” Kay made the difficult and unprecedented decision to run it herself. And over the course of her career, Kay eventually became one of the most powerful newspaper publishers of the 20th century.
At its heart, Becoming Katharine Graham highlights pivotal events of the 1970s that occurred under Kay’s leadership tenure—the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandal, and a violent Washington Post pressmen’s strike—as well as the tumultuous path she endured as one of the first female leaders in corporate America. Her Pulitzer Prize winning story is sure to inspire a new generation.
Teddy Kunhardt, Director and Producer
Teddy Kunhardt is an award-winning filmmaker. He has received four Emmy Awards, including for his role as director and producer of the Emmy and Peabody-winning film True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality. Kunhardt’s recent projects include Emmy winning The Silent Witness, The Thread Season 1 & 2, Lincoln’s Dilemma and the award-winning documentary Fragments of Paradise, which premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. His previous projects are, A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks, Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union, The Soul of America, the IDA Award-winning John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Emmy winner King in the Wilderness, Emmy winner Jim: The James Foley Story among others. Kunhardt received his education at Skidmore College and the Institute of Culinary Education and is a founding board member and executive director of Life Stories, a division of the Kunhardt Film Foundation. He lives in Chappaqua, New York with his wife Sarah, son Henry, and daughter Beatrice.
George Kunhardt, Director and Producer
George Kunhardt is a four-time Emmy Award winning documentary director and producer. His recent film, Becoming Katharine Graham, premiered on Amazon Prime Video in February 2025. He currently serves as an Executive Producer on the docuseries The Thread (YouTube, 2024-Present). Past films include: The Silent Witness (2023, Emmy Winner); Fragments of Paradise (2022, Venice Film Festival, Winner); Lincoln’s Dilemma (Apple TV+, 2021); A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks (HBO, 2021); The Soul of America (HBO, 2020); True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality (HBO, 2019, Emmy Award and Peabody Award Winner); John McCain: For Whom The Bell Tolls (HBO, 2018, IDA Award Winner); King in the Wilderness (HBO, 2018, Emmy Award Winner and NAACP Image Award Nominated); Becoming Warren Buffett (HBO, 2017); Jim: The James Foley Story (HBO, 2016, Emmy Award Winner); and Living With Lincoln (HBO, 2015). Kunhardt graduated from Wheaton College as the college’s first film major. He is a founding board member and Executive Director of Life Stories, a division of The Kunhardt Film Foundation. He lives in Bedford, New York with his wife Jackie and their sons George Jr. and James.
Emma Sassoon, Producer
Emma Sassoon is a documentary producer with a deep passion for storytelling. She is currently working on a feature-length documentary for Life Stories, set to air in 2026. Some of her past work includes Becoming Katharine Graham, Emmy-nominated Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union, IDA Award-winning John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Emmy winner King in the Wilderness. She has also recently completed producing The Thread Season 3, a series that highlights the life stories of individuals across industries with varying experiences and insights to share. She is a native New Yorker who loves live music, pottery, a book she can’t put down, and continuing to explore the city she grew up in.