David Zeiger

David Zeiger’s most recent film, A Night of Ferocious Joy, premiered at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam. The festival, which featured it as part of its “USA Today” Section, described the film as “not an ordinary concert film… because it will go down in history as the first anti-war concert of the new millennium.” The film’s U.S. festival premiere was at South by Southwest in 2004, which described it as a “Rousing and eventful performance film.”

Zeiger created, produced and directed the 13-part documentary series, Senior Year, for broadcast on PBS in January 2002. The series follows a group of 15 students at Fairfax High, the most diverse school in Los Angeles, through their last year in high school. About the series, Entertainment Weekly wrote “Others have tried to document high school life (remember American High?), but this series succeeds where those drier efforts failed…. High school is a time for experimentation, and finally, a truly experimental filmmaker is there.” Senior Year was broadcast in Europe on Planate Cable, and was a premiere series on the new U.S. English/Spanish cable network, SíTV, in 2004.

His short film Funny Old Guys premiered in August 2002 at the Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles. Its television premiere was August 19, 2003, on the HBO Documentary series “Still Kicking, Still Laughing.” Funny Old Guys captures the final months of the life of Frank Tarloff, formerly blacklisted Academy-Award-winning writer, as he and a group of friends, all former TV and film writers, confront his imminent death.

The Band, Mr. Zeiger’s tribute to his son, aired to critical acclaim on the PBS series P.O.V. in 1998. It has screened at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam and AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles, and was awarded “Best Documentary” and “Best of Show” at the Central Florida Film Festival. The Band was broadcast in 2000 on the French/German network La Sept ARTE.

Displaced in the New South aired in the United States on PBS in 1996 and on The Discovery Channel International in 1997. The film looks at life in and around Atlanta from the point of view of Vietnamese and Mexican immigrants. Its festival screenings include the Chicago Latino, Cine Acción Latino, South by Southwest, Doubletake, and San Francisco Asian American Film Festivals. The film was the inspiration for the Indigo Girls’ single, “Shame on You,” featured on their 1997 release, Shaming of the Sun.