Joshua Oppenheimer

Year of birth, place
1974, Texas, United States
Biography
Joshua Oppenheimer has worked for over a decade with militias, death squads and their victims to explore the relationship between political violence and the public imagination. Educated at Harvard and Central St Martins, London, his award-winning films include »The Globalization Tapes« (2003, co-directed with Christine Cynn), »The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase« (1998, Gold Hugo, Chicago), »These Places We’ve Learned to Call Home« (1996, Gold Spire, San Francisco) and numerous shorts. Oppenheimer is Senior Researcher on the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Genocide and Genre project and has published widely on these themes.
 
Oppenheimer is recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant” (2015-2019). His debut feature film, »The Act of Killing« (2012, 159 min), was named Film of the Year in the 2013 by the Guardian and the Sight and Sound Film Poll, and won 72 international awards, including the European Film Award 2013, BAFTA 2014, Asia Pacific Screen Award 2013, Berlinale Audience Award 2013, and Guardian Film Award 2014 for Best Film. It was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award® for Best Documentary, and has been released theatrically in 31 countries. His second film, »The Look of Silence« (2014, 99 min), premiered in competition at the 71st Venice Film Festival, where it won five awards including the Grand Jury Prize, the international critics award (FIPRESCI Prize) and the European film critics award (FEDEORA Prize). Since then, »The Look of Silence« has received the Danish Academy Award for Best Documentary, the Danish Film Critics Prize for Best Documentary, and the prestigious Danish Arts Council Award. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival (Best World Documentary), the Copenhagen Documentary Festival (Grand Prize), Festival d’Angers (Audience Award for Best Film), Gothenburg Film Festival (Best Documentary), Berlin Film Festival (Peace Film Prize), SXSW (Audience Award), and Sheffield Doc/Fest (Audience Award). Oppenheimer is a partner at Final Cut for Real in Denmark, and Artistic Director of the Centre for Documentary and Experimental Film at the University of Westminster in London.

[2015]