I’m a curious person by nature: I find people and their inner workings fascinating. When I sit down with Keith Famie, I’m moved to find he’s a kindred spirit. Keith’s journey—from celebrity chef to TV personality to documentary filmmaker—is a study in reinvention. But what it truly reflects is Keith’s deep curiosity about humanity.
Keith made his mark in Detroit-area restaurants: he was the Chef de Cuisine at Forte in Birmingham, and he created well-known dining destination Les Auteurs in Royal Oak.
But Keith was already searching for what was next. That’s what led him to compete on Season 2 of Survivor: The Australian Outback—and to abruptly stop competing.
“Towards the end of Survivor, the last four or five days, I just kind of disconnected from the whole thing,” Keith recalls. “I thought, ‘Whatever’s going to be is going to be.’ I’d go on these walks by myself and just sit on this one ledge, for hours.”
The silence was a revelation for Keith. “It’s weird when you can’t hear a sound—zero sound,” he says. “Try it sometime. Go someplace with zero sound, where it’s just your thoughts. It cleanses you. It’s humbling. You become—you start taking stock of your own life. Your mistakes, your regrets, your successes, your failures. You can’t escape yourself. It’s like therapy with yourself. That’s when I realized—there’s got to be something more.”
After Keith became the last contestant voted off, he landed a deal with the Food Network, which took him all over the world to tell stories of food and culture. But behind the scenes, Keith was grappling with a personal crisis: his father, who had Alzheimer’s disease, required care.
“I was his custodial guardian,” Keith says. “When he passed in 2003—I held his hand as he took his last breath—it was a defining moment. I thought, ‘I don’t want to be the chef guy anymore. Everything I’m doing feels self-centered. I need to focus on something bigger.’”
With this realization, Keith pivoted to filmmaking. “I already had a production company [Visionalist Entertainment Productions] for my Food Network projects,” he explains. “So I thought, why not use it to tell other people’s stories?” The transition wasn’t easy. “When I’d call someone for an interview, they’d ask, ‘Aren’t you a chef?’ It was economic suicide for a while,” he admits.
Eventually, Keith’s persistence paid off: his Our Story series on PBS highlighted immigrant communities in Michigan, taking viewers on emotional journeys back to their ancestral homelands. “I realized I was still cooking,” he says. “Only now, I was cooking with different ingredients.”
Keith’s films are guided by his curious and open-minded approach to filmmaking. “You never really know the story you’re going to tell,” Keith discloses. “You set out with one vision, but life always surprises you.”
As an example, Keith describes a documentary of his that moves us both to tears: Maire’s Journey, which follows the final months of 24-year-old Maire Kent, who was dying of cardiac sarcoma. Keith met Maire while working on a documentary concept about embracing dying. “She was this old soul in a young body,” he says. “Her wisdom floored me.”
What started as a single interview grew into a profound relationship. Maire expressed a unique wish to Keith: she wanted her ashes to journey to the ocean in a boat. “Maire made me promise to film everything, even her funeral, and to get her to the ocean in that boat. I told her, ‘I’ll make it happen.’ I had no idea how,” Keith confesses, “but I knew I had to try.”
Keith reached out to George Wurtzel, a blind carpenter he’d met years earlier. “George said, ‘I can do it.’ And he did,” Keith recalls. The handcrafted, waterproof, three-and-a-half-foot wooden sailboat George constructed carried both Maire’s ashes and her story. Over six weeks, the boat traveled from Michigan’s waters to the Atlantic, touching countless lives along the way.
“People who found her boat and read her story didn’t just return it to the water—they carried her message forward,” Keith notes. “What inspired me most wasn’t just Maire’s story, but how people—complete strangers—picked it up and carried it forward. That’s what humanity at its best looks like.”
Keith’s films tackle deeply human themes: Down syndrome, homelessness, mental health. He’s also created a multi-part series about people on the front lines of both cancer and forms of dementia, as well as many more complicated topics.
“I ask viewers to look in the mirror,” he explains. “I want them to ask, ‘How has this changed me? How can I grow?’”
His most recent documentary, Detroit: City of Chefs, reflects Keith’s deep ties to the area. “It’s amazing how harmoniously so many cultures have lived together here over the decades,” Keith remarks. “That’s a lesson in humanity.”
Keith’s curiosity about humanity has served him well—he and his team have garnered 23 Michigan Emmy awards and counting—but Keith is about serving others. “It’s not about awards,” he says. “What really matters is the lives we touch.”
I still have Maire’s story going around in my psyche, as well as the story about Keith’s dad. I’m pulled to ask Keith his own thoughts on dying. He ponders for a moment.
“I think that dash on our headstone—that little line between the year we’re born and the year we die—really defines who we are,” Keith says.
What seems to define Keith’s dash is his curiosity. “Every project I work on teaches me something new about myself and about the world,” Keith observes. “From respected humanitarian leaders, I’ve learned that curiosity is a powerful tool. If we approached life with curiosity instead of judgment, the world would be a much kinder place.”
To understand the stories Keith’s working on, or to see any of his previous films, visit v-prod.com
Every project I work on teaches me something new about myself and about the world. From respected humanitarian leaders, I’ve learned that curiosity is a powerful tool.
What makes life precious, in Keith’s words:
“So many wonderful friends I've made, with cherished lessons taught to me by a very diverse group of mentors. Basically, every time I step onto a set with my amazing team to tell someone’s story. When not telling stories, I cherish all times I can spend with my kids, my love of my life and our grandkids.”