David Osit
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Sundance 2025: Predators, André is an Idiot, Marlee Matlin: I’m Not Alone
“Is it even possible for something designed as entertainment to be a public service?” Predators cinematographer-editor-director David Osit asks this question of ethnographer Mark de Rond about NBC TV show To Catch a Predator and its successors, but it also applies to this project’s of-the-moment anxieties about nonfiction practice. Documentaries seem to have entered a phase of self-reflexive fretting about their own impact; I think one reason No Other Land has become so popular is because it explicitly states this, having its subjects worry about their Facebook click rates and wonder out loud whether the film they’re making can possibly […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 26, 2025 -
“Palestine May Be the Last Bastion of American Ignorance”: David Osit on Mayor
Conflicts keep Mayor Musa Hadid, mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah since 2012, on the move. A modest man who delights in meeting his fellow citizens and problem-solving ways to make their daily existence easier, he’s a walking, talking human “customer service department.” Hadid is less the head of municipality than a crisis manager, listening patiently to every complaint and request that comes his way. Consistently reminded that his power is limited by the unwanted presence of Israeli military and government interference, Hadid’s running of a city in occupation is often frustratingly restricted. In director David Osit’s new documentary, […]
by Erik Luers on Dec 2, 2020 -
The Beautiful Stubborn Loneliness of the Filmmaker-Shooter
Folks who go to artist residencies fall into one of three categories. There are the artists for whom the time and space is more an experiential tool (we’re looking at you, social practitioners), those who strike a healthy balance between socializing and accomplishing an elevated amount of creative work, and those who disappear into an antisocial work bunker, popping up only for communal feedings, knowing upon exiting into the real world they’ll be back in the trenches of freelance gigs, copyediting, teaching work and the reply-all emails that accompany them. I fall into the latter category. Not long ago, I […]
by Mitch McCabe on Jul 7, 2020 -
Cancer and Video Games: Malika Zouhali Worrall and David Osit on Thank You for Playing
A video gaming experience therapeutic for both players and its grief-stricken creator, That Dragon, Cancer can currently be purchased for use on your Mac/PC and other devices. Created by Colorado-based developer Ryan Green, the independent video game serves as a reflection of a tragedy he and his family recently experienced: the death of Green’s young son, Joel, who passed away after a sustained battle with cancer. Working on the project as Joel was receiving treatment, Ryan and his family incorporated very real moments of personal history into That Dragon, Cancer, even going as far as to sample Joel and his family’s actual voices […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 18, 2016 -
Toronto, Camden and Venice
TORONTO by Scott Macaulay High Rise has long been considered one of the J.G. Ballard’s most “adaptable” books, with the author’s dispassionate meditations on disassociation, inner and outer space, and the psychologies and paraphilias unleashed by 20th-century life encased within the sturdy confines of a modern apartment building and a class-based tale of survival. Nonetheless, High Rise has taken decades to reach the screen, despite the attachments of numerous directors, including Vincenzo Natali, Bruce Robinson and, revealed producer Jeremy Thomas at a talk at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, interest from Nicolas Roeg. Premiering at the festival in Platform, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 28, 2015
