David Shapiro

Award-winning filmmaker to present film commentary
on his new film “MISSING PEOPLE"

NYS Writers Institute, Friday, February 26, 2016
7:00 p.m. Film screening and commentary | Page Hall, 135 Western Ave.,
Downtown Campus [Note early start time]

EVENT DETAILS:
Award-winning filmmaker, visual artist, and UAlbany graduate David Shapiro will present film commentary and answer questions following the screening of his new documentary MISSING PEOPLE (2015, 76 minutes, color) on Friday, February 26, 2016 at 7 p.m. [note early start time] in Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, on the UAlbany Downtown Campus. Shapiro will also hold an informal seminar on documentary filmmaking and art at 4:15 p.m. in the UAlbany Art Museum on the Uptown Campus. The events are free and open to the public and cosponsored by the UAlbany Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibition Race, Love & Labor, and the School of Criminal Justice’s Crime, Justice & Social Structure Film Series.

PROFILE
David Shapiro, a UAlbany graduate, directed the acclaimed 2000 documentary KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT: A MODERN CANNIBAL TALE, the story of a retired, gay anthropologist and painter who revisits the native cultures in Peru and New Guinea that he studied in this youth. The film received numerous awards including a Special Citation from the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award, and a Special Jury Award from the Amsterdam Independent Documentary Film Festival. 

Shapiro’s most recent film is the documentary MISSING PEOPLE, a mystery about an art collector and gallerist in New York City who reopens the investigation of her brother’s long unsolved murder that has haunted her for 35 years, while obsessively collecting and researching the violent work and life of a painter from a crime-ridden neighborhood in New Orleans. The film interweaves layered narratives from the gritty landscape of New York City in the 1970s and a 1990s New Orleans.

Matthew Hoffman from Black Sheep Reviews called MISSING PEOPLE “…intriguing from the moment it begins. … a fascinating portrait of a woman with a deep internal struggle and a past that is finally about the catch up to her.” The film won the Best Documentary Feature Film Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Shapiro also wrote, produced, and shares a film by credit for FINISHING HEAVEN (HBO, 2009), for which he was nominated for a 2010 Emmy as producer.

Shapiro's visual art has been exhibited extensively in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including shows at MoMA, the Tate, the Norton and the Brooklyn Museum.

Previous Visit: March 21, 2002

For additional information, visit the New York Writers Institute on Facebook, online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst or contact us at [email protected], or call 518-442-5620.