Nancy Buirski died on August 29. She had won a PGA Award, started the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and directed the 2016 movie Loving, which was based on her documentary.

Her company, Augusta Films, made the news public without giving any other details.

Buirski’s first job was as a photographer and picture editor for The New York Times. She started the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in 1998 and ran it for the next ten years.

Her first job as a director was The Loving Story (2011), a documentary about Richard and Mildred Loving, a biracial couple who got married in 1958 without knowing that their marriage was illegal in Virginia, where they lived. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case Loving v. Virginia, which they won in the end.

The movie was nominated for an Oscar and got a Peabody Award and a News & Documentary Emmy, among other awards.

In the movie Loving, Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton played Richard and Mildred Loving.

Negga was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. Jeff Nichols, who wrote the movie with Buirski, was nominated for a Spirit Award. The PGA gave the Stanley Kramer Award to Buirski and Loving in 2017.

Susan Margolin, who worked with Buirski a lot and was one of her producers, said about her death, “The field has lost a giant today.”

“Nancy was a completely original thinker and a visionary. With every film she pushed the limits of the art form with her kaleidoscopic, unique approach to storytelling. She was an exceptionally generous supporter of other artists in the field, and will be mourned by so many. We are devastated by this loss,” she said.