Davy Rothbart | |
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 Rothbart in 2015 | |
| Born | David Ira Rothbart April 11, 1975 |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan |
| Occupation(s) | Author, filmmaker, journalist |
| Website | www |
David Ira Rothbart (born April 11, 1975) is a bestselling author, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, contributor to This American Life , and the editor/publisher of Found Magazine .
Davy Rothbart's magazine Found is dedicated to discarded notes, letters, flyers, photos, lists, and drawings found and sent in by readers. The magazine spawned a best-selling book, Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World, published in April 2004. A second collection was published in May 2006, a third in May 2009. The magazine is published annually and co-edited by Rothbart's friend Sarah Locke.
Rothbart, a former Chicago Bulls ticket scalper, [1] often tours the country to share finds and invite others to share their finds with him. His brother, musician Peter Rothbart, often accompanies him on these tours. In 2004, as he was on a nationwide tour to promote the Found book, he appeared twice on the television program the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. He has since been featured on 20/20 , MSNBC, and Last Call with Carson Daly , among other national TV and radio shows, and been profiled in The New Yorker and The New York Times .
Rothbart has toured the U.S. relentlessly with his live spoken-word show, reading from Found Magazine and his own books of stories and essays, appearing in all 50 states and over 200 cities; The Los Angeles Times calls him "an utterly engaging performer."
In the fall of 2014, Found The Musical opened off-Broadway at David Mamet and William H. Macy's Atlantic Theater Company in New York City for a 12-week run. The play, written by Lee Overtree and Hunter Bell, with songs by Eli Bolin and additional materials by the Story Pirates, starred Broadway vet Nick Blaemire as Davy, with Betsy Morgan, Barrett Wilbert Weed, Community's Danny Pudi, and Daniel Everidge, and received overwhelmingly positive reviews, including a "Critic's Pick" from Christopher Isherwood of The New York Times. A new production is planned for Fall of 2016, according to producers Victoria Lang, Eva Price, and Jamie Salka.[ needs update ]
The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas, a collection of Rothbart's short stories, was published in August 2005 by Simon & Schuster. A shorter version of the same book was previously self-published by Rothbart's own production company, 21 Balloons Productions (named after Rothbart's favorite book, The 21 Balloons, by William Pène du Bois). An Italian edition, Il Surfista Solitario del Montana, was published in 2007 by Coniglio Editore. Actor Steve Buscemi optioned three stories from the book for film adaption, to be developed by Olive Productions; Buscemi has written the screenplay and plans to direct.
In September 2012, Rothbart's book of personal essays, My Heart Is An Idiot, was released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book, which details Rothbart's lost loves and longtime life on the road, quickly garnered widespread praise, including positive reviews from The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Book Review, among many others. Upon the book's publication, Rothbart began a massive 79-city North American tour. My Heart Is An Idiot was named one of the Best Books of 2012 by NPR's Morning Edition, Amazon.com, Vanity Fair, and The Huffington Post. The paperback version was released by Picador in September 2013. In Italy, the book was published by Baldini & Castoldi in 2014 as Il Cuore è Idiota.
When Fred Rogers of the PBS television program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood died in February 2003, The New York Times ran an Op-Ed by Rothbart about his childhood encounters with Rogers similar to his story on This American Life. Rothbart's other work on This American Life includes stories about his deaf mother, Barbara Brodsky, a channeler and meditation teacher; a longtime friend seeking advice about an unplanned pregnancy; and his Chicago ticket scalping career. Rothbart also writes for GQ , The Believer , New York Magazine , Grantland , Dwell , SLAM Magazine , Maxim, and The Sun, and has a recurring column in Los Angeles Magazine .
In February 2013, TED released Rothbart's e-book How Did You End Up Here?: The Surprising Ways Our Questions Connect Us, which provides useful conversation-starters and reflections on the value of talking to strangers. Rothbart has spoken at numerous TEDx events, the PopTech Conference, CUSP, AIGA San Francisco, Nike, EA Sports, Amazon, and ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, and hosted TEDxIndianapolis in October, 2013.
At the University of Michigan, Rothbart won the Arthur Miller Award, the Lawrence Kasdan Scholarship, and nine Hopwood Awards, making him the most decorated writer in the school's 205-year history.
In December 2006, Geffen Records released Rothbart's documentary film How We Survive about the punk rock band Rise Against on a DVD called Generation Lost . His second Rise Against documentary, Another Station: Another Mile , which follows the band as they write songs for a new album and perform shows around the world, was released in October 2010, and was among the year's bestselling music DVDs in the U.S. and Germany. In May 2011, Rothbart directed a behind-the-scenes featurette for ItGetsBetter.org about the making of Rise Against's "Make It Stop" video, which was nominated for a MTV Video Music Award. Rothbart and Rise Against lead singer Tim McIlrath are former roommates.
In the spring of 2008, Easier with Practice , a film based on an article Rothbart wrote for GQ about his life on tour, was shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The movie, written and directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, stars Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker; Boardwalk Empire) as Davy and Kel O'Neill as Davy's brother; it premiered June 12, 2009 at the CineVegas Film Festival and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize by actor and festival chairman Dennis Hopper. Easier With Practice premiered internationally at the Edinburgh Film Festival, where it won the prize for Best Feature. In December 2009, Easier With Practice was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards. The film was released in theaters in February 2010, and met with great critical success: The Los Angeles Times called Easier With Practice "fresh, flawless, and totally captivating," and The Village Voice praised the film as "emotionally honest and achingly true."
In January 2009, Rothbart filmed his first full-length narrative feature, Overhaul, which stars rapper Daniel "D Shot" Garvatt as a pizza driver in desperate circumstances on New Year's Eve. Rothbart himself delivered for Bell's Pizza in Ann Arbor, Michigan for six years. Overhaul was scheduled to be released in 2015.
From late 2010 to spring of 2012, Rothbart filmed a documentary called Medora , which follows a resilient high-school basketball team in the small, struggling town of Medora, Indiana. The film, co-directed by Rothbart and Andrew Cohn, premiered at SXSW in 2013 [2] and was released in theaters in fall 2013, receiving widespread praise from The New York Times, The Village Voice, NPR,The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, which named it one of the Best Films of 2013. Currently, Medora holds a 92% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film aired in April, 2014 on the acclaimed PBS series Independent Lens, earning an Emmy Award. The documentary was produced by Beachside Films and Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci, and Wren Arthur of Olive Productions, among others.
Rothbart is the subject of a documentary, directed by David Meiklejohn, called My Heart Is An Idiot, which premiered in April 2011, and screened in twenty U.S. cities that spring. He has also made token appearances as an actor, including a role as Miami night club manager Jake Sylvano in the film The Strongest Man, directed by Kenny Riches, which premiered in January, 2015 at the Sundance Film Festival.
In 2021, Rothbart's documentary 17 Blocks , which tracks the Sanford Family in Southeast Washington, D.C. over the course of 20 years, was released by MTV Documentary Films, executive produced by Sheila Nevins, with impact partners Black Lives Matter, D.C., and Everytown for Gun Safety. The film earned rapturous praise, including rave reviews in Variety, which called it "a singular achievement in documentary filmmaking," The New York Times ("unshakable!"), and Screen International: "Boyhood N' The Hood... packed with gritty realism. We marvel at the hidden powers of the powerless; how, when nearly broken, some people grow back stronger... And we're invited to celebrate the possibilities of change." 17 Blocks holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with 27 reviews. For his work directing and producing 17 Blocks, Rothbart was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. The film also received two Cinema Eye Honors Award nominations. 17 Blocks won top festival awards at the Tribeca Film Festival, Woodstock, Telluride Mountainfilm, São Paulo, Melbourne, Karlovy Vary, San Francisco, Zurich, and 25 other festivals, and was also released widely across France in June, 2021, and in Japan in November, 2021, under the title Landscape of Family.
Rothbart is the founder of Washington To Washington, an annual hiking adventure which brings inner-city kids from Washington, D.C., New Orleans, and Southeast Michigan to New Hampshire for a climb to the top of Mt. Washington. He directs the Found Magazine Prison Pen-Pal Program, connecting Found readers on the outside with those behind bars, and is also active with the youth writing programs 826 National, 826michigan, and 826LA.
A graduate of the alternative Community High School and the University of Michigan, Rothbart lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Los Angeles, California. His brother is photojournalist Michael Forster Rothbart.
Davy Rothbart's stories were featured on the following episodes of This American Life:
Steven Vincent Buscemi is an American actor. Buscemi is known for his work as an acclaimed character actor. His early credits consist of major roles in independent film productions such as the AIDS drama Parting Glances (1986), Mystery Train (1989), In the Soup (1992), and his breakout role as Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992).
Found Magazine, created by Davy Rothbart and Jason Bitner and based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, collected and cataloged found notes, photos, and other ephemera, publishing them in an irregularly issued magazine, in books, and on its website. Items found and published have ranged from love letters to homework assignments, and they are contributed by people who find them in a variety of public places, all over the world.
Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a production company located in Pasadena, California.
Jennie Livingston is an American director best known for the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning.
Nick Davis is a writer, director, and producer.
Ava Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, film and television producer. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, two NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee of an Academy Award and Golden Globe. In 2011 she founded her independent distribution company ARRAY.
Monty Miranda is an American film director. His first feature film, Skills Like This, won the Best Narrative Feature Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival. The film released theatrically on March 20, 2009, on DVD November 17, 2009 and premiered on Starz, the premium cable television channel on December 31, 2009. https://buffalo8.com/portfolio/monty-miranda/
Easier with Practice is a 2009 American drama film written and directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez. It stars Brian Geraghty, Kel O'Neill, Marguerite Moreau, Jeanette Brox, and Jenna Gavigan. The story is based on the 2006 GQ article "What Are You Wearing?" by Davy Rothbart.
John Steppling is an American playwright, screenwriter and teacher. Steppling's plays have been produced in the United States and Europe. He received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, a residency at the McDowell Colony and has received PEN-West, LA Weekly and Dramalogue awards for his theatrical work.
Where Soldiers Come From is a 2011 American documentary film directed by Heather Courtney. The film is an intimate look at a group of young American men who join the Michigan Army National Guard, their families, and the town they come from. Director Heather Courtney follows these young men closely, as they transition from small town teenagers to Army guardsmen during the war in Afghanistan. Their story continues to follow the 23-year-old veterans dealing with the less visible wounds of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and PTSD. It premiered at South by Southwest festival, where it won the best documentary editing award. In 2012, the film won a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story, as well as the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award.
Thomas McKay Martin Jr., known professionally as T. J. Martin, is an American filmmaker. Martin's film Undefeated (2011), for which he was co-director, co-editor, and co-cinematographer, won the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, making Martin the first film director of African-American descent to win an Academy Award for a feature-length film.
Andrew Cohn is an American writer and director originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan. His feature film, The Last Shift, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Sony Pictures in over 150 cities nationwide. The film stars two-time Academy Award nominee Richard Jenkins and is executive produced by Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne. Prior to his work in fiction, Cohn was best known for his vérité style documentary films.
Braxton Pope is an independent American film and television producer and writer. He is a partner in Sodium Fox Productions, which he co-founded with novelist Bret Easton Ellis.
Daniel "DPD" Park is a Korean-American director and filmmaker, who directed a web-series entitled Ktown Cowboys, which won Best First Feature at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in 2010. He has also directed a number of music videos for Far East Movement, including "Rocketeer " and "Dirty Bass featuring Tyga." He has also directed the music video for IAMMEDIC's "Schizophrenia".
Medora is a 2013 documentary film by Andrew Cohn and Davy Rothbart about a small town basketball team based in Medora, Indiana, called the Medora Hornets. The town's 70-students high school basketball team which is on a losing streak of many seasons, just unable to keep up with larger schools in the area league, much as Medora itself struggles to barely survive.
Geoff Marslett is an American film director, writer, producer, animator and actor. His early career started with the animated short Monkey vs. Robot which was distributed internationally by Spike and Mike's Classic Festival of Animation on video and Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation in theatres. More recently he directed several successful narrative feature films including MARS, as well as producing and acting in the experimental documentary Yakona. He appears onscreen in Josephine Decker's Thou Wast Mild and Lovely which was released theatrically in 2014. He currently resides in Austin, Texas and splits his time between filmmaking and teaching at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017. Their first scripted film venture was Nyad - a biopic chronicling Diana Nyad's quest to be the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida.
Tab Hunter Confidential is a 2015 American documentary film focusing on the American actor, singer, and author Tab Hunter. It is inspired by his autobiography of the same name. The film was produced by Allan Glaser and directed by Jeffrey Schwarz.
Aaron Hillis is an American writer, film critic, director, film festival programmer, and curator.
What We Leave Behind is a 2022 documentary film. It's a portrait of director Iliana Sosa's grandfather, Julián Moreno, as he starts building a house in the Mexican state of Durango. As a younger man, Julián had spent decades living between the United States and Mexico, first working as a bracero and later traveling by bus to visit his children and grandchildren in the Southwestern United States. In the film, Julián revisits this past with his granddaughter as the two forge a tighter bond together. Voiceovers from the director punctuate the film and pair with imagery of the local landscape; the soundtrack features an a cappella song by the Cardencheros de Sapioriz, who are also from Durango.
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