selected projects
HARLAN COUNTY, USA
CONSULTING PRODUCER
Restoration and re-release of Barbara Kopple's Academy Award-winning film that unflinchingly documents a coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. Sundance Film Festival screening, Criterion Collection release.
CRACKED UP
PRODUCER
In Cracked Up we witness the impact adverse childhood experiences have through the story of actor and Saturday Night Live star Darrell Hammond. Behind the scenes Darrell suffered from flashbacks, self injury, and addiction, until the right doctor put him on a path to recovery. Featuring Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps The Score.
THE WAVY GRAVY MOVIE
PRODUCER
Through candid interviews with Wavy's family and friends, including Ram Dass, Bonnie Raitt, and Dr. Larry Brilliant and close encounters with Wavy himself, The Wavy Gravy Movie paints a moving and surprising portrait of a lifelong commitment to peace, justice and compassion.
TO BE FOREVER WILD
DIRECTOR
A crew of filmmakers, musicians and artists explore New York's Catskills Mountains, landscapes that have for centuries captured America's imagination and inspired a love of wilderness.
SMALL STEPS
DIRECTOR
Filmed over the course of four years inside a high school and in homes and neighborhoods in the Bronx, Small Steps: Creating the High School for Contemporary Arts tells the inside story of new 'small schools' inside of New York City's largest and most troubled schools.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Bio
David produced the documentary Cracked Up with director Michelle Esrick and co-producer Chris Hegedus, exploring the long term impact of childhood trauma through the story of award-winning comedian and Saturday Night Live star Darrell Hammond. Cracked Up premiered at DOC NYC before streaming on Netflix and is now available on demand.
David collaborated with two-time Academy Award winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple on several projects, including the restoration and re-release of the landmark documentary Harlan County USA with the Criterion Collection; the documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing; and Running From Crazy, about Mariel Hemingway and her family legacy. David also directed the PBS documentary Small Steps: Creating the High School for Contemporary Arts, following the creation of a small school for the arts inside one of New York’s most dangerous high schools, which Barbara Kopple produced.
As an educator David has taught documentary studies and media production at SUNY-Albany and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, as well as with young filmmakers at the elementary and high school level. David was a founding instructor at the Woodstock Film Festival Youth Film Lab, a foundation-supported three-week filmmaking lab for high school students, which has run for nine summers through 2025. He has organized production workshops at schools including The High School for Contemporary Arts (Bronx, NY), Hawes Elementary School (Ridgewood, NJ), and Farragut Middle School (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY), among others.
David co-founded the organization Woodstock Travels, which organized service-learning trips to India and Nepal with local students from upstate New York. Students volunteered with NGOs and schools to create “Media as Service” video and photo projects over the course of eight international trips. David is on the board of the Tomorrowland Projects Foundation (NYFA), which supports artist-driven projects that expand awareness of issues affecting society. He is currently teaching at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in the Journalism and Media Studies program.