Weinstein Company Names Donna Gigliotti President Of Production

Having established a relationship for more than seventeen years, The Weinstein Company (TWC) has hired Oscar-winning producer and former Miramax Films Executive Vice President Donna Gigliotti as president of production. She will work directly with TWC Co-Chairmen Bob and Harvey Weinstein, as well as produce several films for the company. Gigliotti’s first production will be I Don’t Know How She Does It, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, which will begin principal photography January 17. She is currently overseeing My Week With Marilyn, starring Michelle Williams shooting in the UK, and will produce David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook in the latter half of 2011.Gigliotti is one of only five women ever to win a Best Picture Oscar. In her first outing as an independent producer, she received the 1998 Academy Award for producing the seven-time Oscar-winning Miramax film Shakespeare in Love, and was subsequently nominated for a Best Picture Oscar for The Weinstein Company’s 2008 romantic drama The Reader.

At the beginning of the 2000s, Gigliotti was president of production for USA Films which, during her tenure, produced such films as Steven Soderberg’s Academy Award-winning Traffic, Robert Altman’s Gosford, Neil La Bute’s Possession and Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Man Who Wasn’t There. She recently produced Let Me In, the English-language remake of the acclaimed Swedish film Let the Right One In.

Beginning her career as assistant to Martin Scorsese on Raging Bull, Gigliotti became director of acquisitions for United Artists’ UA Classics and co-founded Orion Classics, building it into the preeminent distributor of specialized films by such directors as Louis Malle (Au Revoir Les Enfants), Pedro Almodovar (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), Steven Frears (My Beautiful Laudrette), Akira Kurasawa (Ran) and Gabriel Axel (Oscar winner Babette’s Feast). From 1993-96 she served as executive vice president of Miramax Films, where she oversaw and executive produced such projects as Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Restoration starring Robert Downey Jr., and Franco Zefferelli’s Jane Eyre.

“Donna’s a great producer who filmmakers love,” says Harvey Weinstein. “She has impeccable taste but she’s tough-minded and practical, too. I’m looking forward to sharing with her at The Weinstein Company the same kind of success we celebrated together at Miramax.”