5x Media (Spain), Executive Producer. Michael Kaufman is a tv, film, documentary producer with 20+ years experience in Spain, The U.S., China, Ireland, Argentina and Israel. Currently, Michael is working as a manager/producer with L.A.-based 5x Media heading their European office out of Madrid, run by former Keshet International CEO Alon Shtruzman (Homeland, The A Word) and Bunim/Murray Productions’ ex-CEO Gil
Goldschein (The Kardashians, The Real World). Michael manages and produces with
writers/producers The Lehrer Boys (Co-EPs on Fox/Tubi’s #1 series The Freak Brothers), Anne Clements (showrunner of 50 Cents Black Mafia Family on Starz and
Netflix’s Fantasy Island), Juan Carballo (writer/producer on Netflix’s El Amore Despues
Del Amor, and The Roar of The Butterflies for Star+/Disney+) and others.
He previously had a first-look deal with Moonrise Pictures on a variety of tv and film
projects in The U.S with writers/directors including Tessa Blake (NCIS, Riverdale), Liz
Benjamins (The Flight Attendant, Dead to Me), J. Todd Harris (The Kids Are Alright and
The Trial of The Chicago Seven), The Lehrer Boys (Freak Brothers) and companies
including MMC Studios, Creativity Capital, and Paramount Pictures/Jerry Bruckheimer.
Last year Michael produced a documentary with Ambassador James Costos and producer Eva Lindemann-Sanchez for U.S. platform Max/Discovery+ he co-created on Spanish gastronomy and travel in collaboration with The Spanish government.
As an Executive Producer, Michael worked on MSNBC’s news documentary series Al
Roker Reports that featured an in-depth look at the war on drugs and violence in America in partnership with the FBI, DEA, and ATF. He was an Executive Producer on Season 1 and Season 2 of Viacom/MTV Networks series D.EA. in collaboration with the Drug Enforcement Agency. He also served as Co-Executive Producer on The Food Network’s documentary series My Life in Food, Heavyweights, and Take on the Takeaway, Tru TV’s The Atocha Adventure, NBC’s Quill Awards, and NBC’s Diabetes: The Silent Killer. Michael was a producer on ABC’s primetime hit Wife Swap, Showtime’s political reality series American Candidate, NBC Universal/Bravo’s docu-series Showbiz Moms and Dads, CBS’s Big Brother, NBC’s The Biggest Loser and Rock The House for Vh1. He consulted for Israeli studios (Herzeliah) and production companies (Matar) as well as U.S. networks (Bravo/NBC Universal). Michael was a producer on the original format and The Emmy-Award winning Queer Eye (Bravo/NBC Universal).
His documentary film credits include The American Film Institute’s “Audience Award”
winning feature Gay Republicans, directed by Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice). He also
produced the GLAAD award-winning Totally Gay and Totally Gayer for MTV Networks
that took an investigative look at how gay culture became mainstream and vice versa.
Previously Michael was the V.P. of Development for the Los Angeles office of Vision
Independent Productions and Warner Brother’s International TV where he created
television formats that sold to countries including The U.S., China, The U.K., France,
Germany, and Italy. Michael’s past roles include serving as V.P. of Development and
Programming at Actual Reality Pictures which produced the award-wining documentary The September Issue featuring Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour for A&E Films and Flip that House for TLC/Discovery while also developing and producing content for Vogue/Conde Nast, The Met Ball, LVMH and others.
Michael also served as the V.P. of Programming at Al Roker Entertainment. He
developed, sold and produced a variety of lifestyle programming along with investigative series and specials for Discovery Networks, NBC, MSNBC, A&E Networks, MTV Networks, and AMC Networks. On the network side, he was formerly the show Director/Producer for Crossover at CCTV International News Channel in the Features Department, the world’s largest multi- language news Channel based in Beijing. Michael was the second foreign producer brought into CCTV and was responsible helping to create an acquisition and format
strategy at CGTN. He was the Director of Current Programming at ABC/Disney, where he oversaw the Emmy-winning Soap Talk in addition to other scripted and unscripted series. Michael also served as Supervising Producer for Current Series at Fuse TV/Rainbow Media where he helped launch the unscripted department.
In addition to his work as a producer, Michael has taught film theory/history and tv
producing at Columbia University, U.C. Berkeley, U.C.L.A., L’universita degli studi di
Bologna and Sapir College in Israel.
Michael graduated from Columbia University with an M.F.A. in Film Producing. He
received dual B.A. degrees in Film/Rhetoric and Italian Studies, cum laude, from U.C.
Berkeley. In 2000, Michael was the recipient of the Peggy Guggenheim Fellowship in
Venice, Italy.