Steven Miles Sulkin

For decades, producer and award-winning documentary filmmaker Steve Sulkin’s goal has been to choose one injustice in the world and make a difference, to right a wrong, to expose an issue, and to help improve our world.

In 1977, after graduating from Northwestern University, Mr. Sulkin founded SimuLyve International, a film production company where he serves as CEO, producing award-winning films recognized by the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards, the Telly Awards, and others.

Over the decades, Mr. Sulkin’s work has covered a wide range of issues, many in the field of medicine. He created films to help ensure that children do not die needlessly from asthma. At that time, children were not allowed to self-medicate with inhalers brought to school as they needed parental permission before being able to use them. His documentary about 8-year-old Mikey Wharton, who waited for hours while the school tried to locate his parents and who died in a nurse’s office clutching his inhaler, helped change laws in every state in the United States. Today, children can bring inhalers to school and help save their own lives.

Mr. Sulkin went on to educate the public about asthma to help prevent unnecessary deaths, including cases where medications were so confusing that a father, in another film he produced, placed the wrong medication in a nebulizer and watched his child die.

Steve has educated audiences that IVF is not experimental with his film Journeys, The Art & Science of Making a Baby, one of the few films where he is also in the cast. Mr. Sulkin showed that multiple sclerosis can be mitigated with the film First Do No Harm. In Poland, he helped train Ukrainian physicians in how to treat cerebral palsy with botulinum toxin, even during a war. He has also brought attention to injustices in vulnerable populations, such as women of color in the state of Georgia, who have a three times greater chance of dying during pregnancy than their white counterparts and psoriasis patients whose skin is of color are underrepresented in clinical studies and treatment. He also produced the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Award-winning film Looking Inward, about how playing music can build new neural pathways after brain injury due to multiple sclerosis, a natural process called neuroplasticity.

In 1996, Steven founded Advisers U.S.A., a pro bono organization that helped feed the hungry and reduce infant mortality.

In 2011, during President Barack Obama’s run for the presidency, Mr. Sulkin’s film Yes We Can Change Our Destiny (which he also composed the music for) was seen around the world by hundreds of thousands, encouraging everyday people to make a difference.

Mr. Sulkin’s latest venture is the creation of the nonprofit Discern Films, dedicated to the principle that “Storytelling is the Engine of Belief.” His goal is to allow the public to hear many sides of a story and discern for themselves where the truth lies. He believes that through storytelling, we can correct many injustices by changing belief.

EDUCATION AND PERSONAL LIFE

Mr. Sulkin received a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and completed post-graduate work in commercial music advertising at DePaul University. He has served as a spokesperson for American Express (AMEX OPEN), appearing in online and print advertising.

Mr. Sulkin is an accomplished classical and jazz musician and photographer. He is married to Lisa Sulkin, a gifted oil painter. Their seven children range in age from 18 to 42, Maycie, Myles, Melanie, Joshua, Sia, Sonia, and Maryam. As he likes to say, those are his greatest productions.