Ila Bo Kovitz is an independent filmmaker, producer and journalist based in Southern California. Her producing credits span documentary features and series, with more than a decade of experience directing, story-producing, field-producing and doing camerawork.
Bo was recently Emmy-nominated for the critically-acclaimed Netflix series Turning Point: The Vietnam War, which she developed and produced alongside Brian Knappenberger. In 2022, she won a Sports Emmy for Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers, directed by Antoine Fuqua. Prior to that, she worked on Trilogy Films' critically acclaimed John Lewis: Good Trouble, as well as Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry's mini-series on global mental health, The Me You Can't See.
She earned her masters degree at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she was the Marlon T. Riggs Fellow in Documentary Filmmaking and was mentored by award-winning documentarian Dawn Porter. Her thesis film and directorial debut The Desert follows patients, first responders and health care workers after a devastating public hospital closure. It premiered at Mill Valley Film Festival in 2019.
Bo first cut her teeth as an investigative journalist, covering local politics for the city of Berkeley and contributing research for PBS FRONTLINE investigations. She has also advised incarcerated reporters at the San Quentin News, based at San Quentin State Prison.
A first-generation Thai-American on her mom’s side, Bo is a proud member of A-Doc, Asian-American Journalists Association, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and Women of Color Unite.
