David Osit (born May 6, 1987) is an American

documentary filmmaker A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

, editor and composer. His documentaries include ''Mayor'' and ''

Thank You for Playing ''Thank You for Playing'' is an American documentary film, produced and directed by Malika Zouhali-Worrall and David Osit. The film follows the development of the video game '' That Dragon, Cancer'', which tells the story of Ryan and Amy Green r ...

''.

Life and career

Osit was raised in the suburbs of New York City in

Tuckahoe (village), New York Tuckahoe is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. One-and-a-half miles long and three-fourths of a mile wide, with the Bronx River ...

, where he graduated from

Tuckahoe High School Tuckahoe High School is a historic high school located in Eastchester, Westchester County, New York. It was built in 1930–1931, and is a three-story brick building with Aztec-inspired cast stone trim in the Art Deco style. The front facade is co ...

in 2005. Osit studied Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

where he was a Wallenberg Fellow, and studied Refugee Law at the American University in Cairo. His first documentary film, Building Babel, was filmed while Osit was in graduate school and followed real estate developer

Sharif El-Gamal Sharif El-Gamal (born December 23, 1973) is an American real estate developer. He is the chairman and chief executive officer of Soho Properties, a Manhattan-based real estate company. El-Gamal came to international attention in 2010 for his role ...

during the 2010

Ground Zero Mosque Park51 (originally named Cordoba House) is a development originally envisioned as a 13-story Islamic community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The developers hoped to promote an interfaith dialogue within the greater c ...

controversy. The film was broadcast on PBS in 2013. He is the director, along with co-director

Malika Zouhali-Worrall Malika Zouhali-Worrall is a British- Moroccan film director and editor. She is the co-director of the 2012 documentary ''Call Me Kuchu'', about Ugandan activist David Kato, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, going on to ...

, of the 2015 documentary ''

''. Osit and Zouhali-Worrall also directed "Games You Can't Win," a short film inspired by the feature for

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Op-Docs. Both the feature and short were inspired by the art house video game That Dragon, Cancer. In 2017, Thank You For Playing won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary. His third feature documentary, ''

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

'', follows Musa Hadid, the mayor of Ramallah, the

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

capital of Palestine. The film premiered at the

True/False Film Festival True/False Film Fest is an annual documentary film festival that takes place in Columbia, Missouri. The Fest occurs on the first weekend in March (sometimes beginning in late February), with films being shown from Thursday evening to Sunday nig ...

in 2020, one of the last film festivals to proceed as scheduled in the first half of 2020 due to the

Coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...

. It was theatrically released on December 2, 2020, to critical praise. The film was a ''New York Times'' "Critic's Pick" and an ''Indiewire'' "Critic's Pick", and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Politics & Government Documentary, and a 2022 Peabody Award. Osit has edited and composed for numerous documentary films, including Live From New York!, which was the opening night film of the 2015

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was f ...

. He was named to the 2020 Doc NYC "40 Under 40" list.

Influences

Osit has cited Roy Andersson,

Elia Suleiman Elia Suleiman ( ar, إيليا سليمان, ; born 28 July 1960) is a Palestinian film director and actor of Rûm Greek Orthodox origin. He is best known for the 2002 film ''Divine Intervention'' ( ar, يد إلهية), a modern tragic comedy on ...

, Miloš Forman and

Amir Naderi Amir Naderi ( fa, امیر نادری (), born 15 August 1946, in Abadan) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and photographer. He is best known for '' The Runner'' and ''Vegas: Based on a True Story''. Career Amir Naderi grew up in Abada ...

as influences on his work. He has referred to James Longley's

Iraq in Fragments ''Iraq in Fragments'' is a documentary film directed by James Longley. Longley shot the film in Digital Video on a Panasonic DVX100 miniDV camcorder. The film premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival where it won three awards: "Directing Award ...

as a formative documentary for his generation of documentary filmmakers.

Filmography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Osit, David Living people American documentary filmmakers 1987 births