LL

Lyn Davis Lear

Trustee at Sundance Institute

Lyn Davis Lear is an Emmy nominated filmmaker, celebrated environmentalist, and political activist. Shining a light on society’s most urgent issues drives Lyn’s creative and activist endeavors. She has produced, executive produced and advised documentary films on topics ranging from climate change, investigative journalism to new frontiers in modern medicine and Technology.

Her films include the Emmy® and BAFTA-nominated films The Great Hack, The Fight, HBO’s The Vow, Fantastic Fungi: The Magic Beneath Us, and Where’s My Roy Cohn? She had three films premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival: Bring Your Own Brigade, Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided To Go For It, and Rebel Hearts.

In 2014, Lyn produced What’s Possible, the opening film for the UN Climate Summit with UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon that reached 127 million people worldwide. The film was a collaboration with director Louie Schwartzberg, writer Scott Burns, actor Morgan Freeman and composer Hans Zimmer. Lyn also produced a sequel, A World of Solutions.

Lyn has been a Trustee of the Board of Directors of the Sundance Institute for ten years. She also serves on the Board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Norman Lear Center’s Hollywood, Health & Society at USC, and The National Academy of Medicine’s Healthy Longevity Advisory Council.

To fulfill the UCLA Grand Challenge plan for Los Angeles to be fully sustainable by 2050, Lyn serves on the Board of the LA Sustainability Leadership Council. She previously served on the President’s Council of CERES and was a founder and advisor for Project Drawdown.

Lyn and her husband, Norman Lear, received the 2017 Hollywood Icon Award at the Women’s Guild Cedars-Sinai 60th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee Gala. In 2016, Lyn and Norman received the Amicus Award from the International Documentary Association (IDA), and Lyn was honored alongside Vice President Al Gore by UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. In 2008, she received the Global Green Millennium Award for Entertainment Industry Environmental Leadership.

In 2000, Lyn and Norman purchased an original Dunlap copy of the Declaration of Independence. The Lears created the Declaration of Independence Road Trip which brought the document to every state in the nation, followed by Declare Yourself which registered over one million voters.

In 1989, Lyn and Norman, along with Alan and Cindy Horn founded the Environmental Media Association. EMA’s founding mission was to educate the entertainment industry on environmental issues and award films with environmental messaging that impacted the public.

Lyn holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and a license in Marriage and Family Therapy. She is the mother to three children and resides in Los Angeles with her husband.

Timeline

  • Trustee

    Current role