David Schisgall | |
|---|---|
| Born | U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Director, Writer, Producer |
| Years active | 1999–present |
| Website | dschisgall |
David Schisgall is an American documentary filmmaker and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. [1] [2] [3] His most recent project is the 2025 Peacock docuseries Anatomy of Lies. [4]
Earlier in his career Schisgall was an associate of Errol Morris, working on A Brief History of Time , Fast, Cheap & Out of Control , Mr. Death, and other projects. [5] His directorial debut, The Lifestyle (1999), explored suburban swinging culture. [5] During the 2000s, he served as a conflict reporter for MTV, covering the Second Intifada in Israel/Palestine, the war in Iraq, and the civil war in Colombia for True Life and other programs, reaching millions of young viewers with insights into America’s conflicts abroad. [6] In 2004, he received the Edward R. Murrow Award for his film about Iraq. Following this, he produced Operation Filmmaker (2007), focusing on collaboration during wartime Iraq. [7]
In 2007, Schisgall directed and produced Very Young Girls , a documentary about the commercial sexual exploitation of young women in New York City. [8] Activists in the space called it "the film which launched a movement." He also developed episodes of This American Life for television in 2007–2008. [9] He co-wrote the screenplay for Our Idiot Brother (2011), a comedy directed by Jesse Peretz. [10] Another project, Theo Who Lived (2016), documented journalist Theo Padnos’s captivity by an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. [11] In 2020, Schisgall directed and produced The Oil War, which explored America’s military involvement in the Middle East based on the works of Col. Andrew Bacevich. [12]
Schisgall has served as an Adjunct Faculty member at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. [13]
Schisgall is married to Evgenia Peretz, a writer for Vanity Fair . [14]
| Year | Title | Contribution | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Anatomy of Lies | Director and executive producer | Documentary series |
| 2020 | The Oil War | Director and producer | Documentary |
| 2016 | Theo Who Lived | Director and writer | Documentary |
| 2011 | Our Idiot Brother | Writer | Feature film |
| 2010 | Five Weddings and a Felony | Producer | Documentary |
| 2007 | Very Young Girls | Director and producer | Documentary |
| 2007 | Operation Filmmaker | Producer | Documentary |
| 2003-2004 | True Life | Director and Producer | Documentary series |
| 1999 | The Lifestyle | Director | Documentary |
| Year | Result | Award | Category | Work | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Nominated | Warsaw Film Festival | Best Documentary | Very Young Girls | [15] |
| 2005 | Won | Edward R. Murrow Award | Best News Documentary | True Life : I'm Living in Iraq | [16] |
 | This article about a United States film director is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
