About
Free Lion Productions believes life should be lived with courage, integrity and respect. We,
The female lion is our spirit animal. But ask us about the male lion's mane.
Fiona Dawson, Director
Fiona Dawson is a facilitator with a passionate belief in the power of soft-skills and multi-media. She inspires individuals and teams using a broad range of curriculum and is adept at customizing programs for diversity & inclusion awareness. Fiona also directs and produces media content, including documentary film.
Within educational, non-profit and corporate sectors, Fiona provides soft-skills training from one-on-one private clients to team building events with 1,000+ participants. She delivers keynote speeches, emcees events, and facilitates presentations workshops. With a background in Corporate Social Responsibility, Fiona specializes in customizing The Leader’s Institute curriculum for Diversity & Inclusion engagement.
Realizing the power of storytelling, in October 2012 Fiona started the TransMilitary media project in the hopes of influencing the end of the ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military. In 2015 she was commissioned by The New York Times to direct the short opinion documentary “Transgender, at War and in Love,” with co-producers Gabe Silverman and Jamie Coughlin of SideXSide Studios. This “op doc” became one of the The Times' most viewed, Fiona was awarded by The White House as an "LGBT Artist Champion of Change” and June 30, 2016 the ban on transgender service members was ended. Further, the film won The White House News Photographers Association's Best Documentary, was nominated for a GLAAD Award and was a 2016 Emmy® nominee for "Outstanding Short Documentary." Following the current administration's new directive to reinstate the ban, the full story has taken an unpredictable shape. Her feature length documentary TransMilitary, directed and produced in collaboration with SideXSide Studios, premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) 2018 and won the Best Feature Documentary Audience Award. Following a string of festival awards, TransMilitary made its TV debut on Logo on November 15th, 2018 and will be available to stream on a variety of platforms in 2019.
Having been raised in the United Kingdom, Fiona lived and worked in Bangladesh and Portugal before immigrating to America in 2000. She moved to New York in 2011 and today is based in Brooklyn.