Matthew Mishory

Matthew Mishory is an American film director of Israeli descent. He has directed both narrative and documentary films and was named a "rising talent" by Variety Magazine in 2013.^[1] His award-winning 2009 film, Delphinium, about Derek Jarman, was preserved by the British Film Institute in its National Film Archive.^[2]

Life and career

Mishory was born on July 17, 1982, in Santa Monica, California, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. He is a citizen of the United States and Israel. He studied film at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 2004.^[3][4]

Mishory's 2009 short film, Delphinium, about the legendary English artist Derek Jarman, was screened at dozens of film festivals before being permanently installed in the British Film Institute's National Film Archive.^[5][2] The film was subsequently re-released in the UK by the BFI as part of the year-long Jarman 2014 celebration.^[6] In 2017, it was presented by the Tate Britain Museum in London.^[7][8] The film's score was composed by Siouxsie and the Banshees co-founder Steven Severin. ^[9]

His feature film debut, the 35 mm black-and-white Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean, debuted at the Transilvania International Film Festival on June 10, 2012, and was released theatrically in the United States, the UK, and Germany, and received a Jury Prize at the 2012 Image+Nation Montreal Film Festival.^[10][11] Writing for Film International, Robert Kenneth Dator wrote, "Matthew Mishory has managed to capture an austere beauty of a kind little known by all but the likes of Baudelaire.”^[12]

Mishory's second feature film, the documentary Absent, was filmed in remote rural Moldova. It concerns the village of Mărculeşti, site of a horrible atrocity in 1941 in which all of the village's Jews were massacred by the Romanian army.^[13]

The film introduces the current residents of Mărculeşti, who seem to be unaware (or unwilling to discuss) what happened.^[14] Mishory's own grandparents lived in the village, escaping to Israel just before the start of the Holocaust.^[14]

In an interview with the online magazine Tablet, Mishory discussed the complex emotions of filming there: "The history of Mărculeşti and the Holocaust pose impossible intellectual and theological questions. All I can say is that my feelings about what happened in Mărculeşti are complicated. I remain a practicing Jew. And I also have serious doubts about human nature. I’m angry that people who live overlooking a killing field lie about their history. But I also have a lot of empathy for the current residents of the village and their difficult circumstances.”^[15]

Mishory's third feature, Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile, was made for the German-French television network Arte.^[16] The film was shot in Switzerland, Italy, Vienna, and Berlin, utilizing unexpected textures (such as Super 8, drone footage, and back-projection) and the German actor Udo Samel to chart pianist/composer Artur Schnabel's course through the emotional and physical landscapes of the European 20th century.^[17] In November 2018, the film was screened^[18] at The Library of Congress in Washington D.C. In 2019 it was released on the classical music channel medici.tv.^[19]

In March 2018, Mishory began filming Mosolov's Suitcase, the story of the Soviet avant-garde composer Alexander Mosolov, sent to the gulag by Joseph Stalin, with César Award-nominated actor Kirill Emelyanov in the title role. Over the course of five years, production was delayed numerous times due to a global pandemic and the outbreak of war. ^[20] In December 2023, Deadline Hollywood announced the casting of Lior Ashkenazi and the resumption of production on the film.^[21] In the first of three intersecting plotlines, Ashkenazi plays a celebrated film director who "recounts his unconventional efforts to complete a film abandoned in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine".^[22] Deadline further reported the completion of principal photography and the release of a teaser trailer in February 2024.^[23]

In 2021, it was announced in Variety Magazine that Mishory would be directing the documentary Who Are the Marcuses? for Stone Canyon Entertainment and Rhino Films.^[24] The film premiered at the 2022 Newport Beach Film Festival and 2023 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Film Threat reported that the film "offers a perspective on how philanthropy can make a change for the better, save a planet in crisis, and maybe even bring about lasting peace in the Middle East".^[25] Guitarist David Broza composed and performed the film's score.

Mishory also directs commercials. In 2018, he directed the "Powerful Performance” campaign for the brand TCL, starring NBA All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo.^[26][27] In 2020, he again directed Antetokounmpo, along with his brother, Thanasis, in the "Enjoy More" campaign.^[28] He also directed a surf campaign with pro surfer Tia Blanco, filmed in Los Cabos, Mexico.^[29]

Filmography

• Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman (2009)
• Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean (2012)
• Absent (2015)
• Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile (2018)
• Who Are the Marcuses? (2022)
• Fioretta (2023)
• Mosolov's Suitcase (2025)

References

External links

• Official website