About Marshall Curry

Marshall Curry is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker who has written and directed both fiction and documentary films.

He won the Oscar for THE NEIGHBORS' WINDOW, a short narrative film that he wrote and directed. He was previously nominated three times for Academy Awards for his documentary films, STREET FIGHT, IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, and A NIGHT AT THE GARDEN. He also directed the award-winning documentaries RACING DREAMS and POINT AND SHOOT and was executive producer of MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS.

His work has won top awards at Sundance, Tribeca, and played on television around the world. His writing has twice been nominated for Writers Guild of America awards.

Street Fight: Curry got his start shooting, editing, directing and producing the documentary STREET FIGHT, which explored urban politics during Cory Booker's first run for mayor of Newark, N.J.

STREET FIGHT won the Audience Awards at the Tribeca Film Festival, AFI/Discovery SilverDocs Festival, and Hot Docs Festival. It also received the Jury Prize at Hot Docs and was nominated for a Writer's Guild of America (WGA) Award. The film went on to be nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy.

The critically praised film was called "Extraordinary" by David Denby (The New Yorker), "Vastly entertaining" by John Anderson (Variety), and "Filmmaking of the first order" by Scott Foundas (L.A. Weekly). It has a 100% positive rating from Rotten Tomatoes.

Racing Dreams: Curry was the Director/Producer, as well as one of the cinematographers and editors of this feature documentary.

RACING DREAMS follows two boys and a girl who dream of one day becoming professional racecar drivers. The film won numerous awards including the Tribeca Film Festival Award for Best Documentary. It was called "The best movie of the year," by The Los Angeles Times and "Absorbing… one of the rare documentaries you leave wishing it was a little longer, " by The New York Times. It has a 100% positive rating from Rotten Tomatoes.

Dreamworks is currently adapting it for a fictional remake, which Curry will executive produce.

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front: IF A TREE FALLS tells the story of a radical environmentalist who faced life in prison for burning two Oregon timber facilities. Curry's editing and writing on the film (with Matthew Hamachek) won him the Sundance Film Festival award for Best Documentary Editing and his second nomination for a Writer's Guild Award. The film won prizes at numerous other festivals, and was released theatrically by Oscilloscope Laboratories to critical acclaim. It was nominated for an Academy Award and aired on PBS's documentary series, POV, as well as the BBC and other networks around the world.

Kenneth Turan at the Los Angeles Times called it "One of the best documentaries of the year" and the New York Times said it was "An extraordinary documentary... [a] fearless exploration of complexity in a world drawn to oversimplified depictions of events and problems, heroes and villains."

Point and Shoot: This feature documentary -- directed, produced and editied by Marshall Curry -- tells the story of a young Baltimore native who set off for Libya to join the rebels fighting dictator Muammar Gaddafi. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary and was nominated for a Gotham Independent Film Award, an IDA Award and a Cinema Eye Honors Award. It was released theatrically and aired on PBS's documentary series, POV, as well as on BBC and other networks around the world.

The film was given an "A" grade by John Anderson (Indiewire), who said it was "a virtual swashbuckler." It was called "Brilliantly constructed and provocative" by Peter Keough (The Boston Globe) and "Riveting... an extraordinary and quietly disturbing film" by David Rooney (The Hollywood Reporter). Jay Weisberg (Variety) said the "editing is a standout."

A Night at The Garden: This short Oscar-nominated documentary, crafted entirely from archival footage, recounts a night in 1939 when 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garde for a Nazi rally. Made with the support and partnership of Field of Vision, it played at the Sundance Film Festival, was shown in theaters nationwide, and aired on PBS. It has been viewed millions times online.

The Neighbors' Window: Curry wrote, directed, and edited this Oscar winning narrative short (20 mins) which stars Maria Dizzia, Greg Keller and Juliana Canfield. Inspired by true events, it tells the story of a mother of young children whose life is shaken up when a young twenty-something couple moves in across the street. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to win over twenty other festival awards before winning the Academy Award for Live Action Short.

Indiewire: "Elegantly, empathetically made, it's a stellar short.... Packs an emotional wallop." And Vox called it, "An extraordinarily sensitive and moving tale."

Mistaken for Strangers: Curry executive produced and helped edit this heartbreaking and hilarious documentary about sibling rivalry and indie rock. Directed by Tom Berninger, the younger brother of the lead singer of The National, it was the opening night film at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it received rave reviews. The Hollywood Reporter called it "Brutal, hilarious... unexpectedly honest" and the New York Observer said it was "The best documentary we've seen all year."

Other Films: In addition to these projects, Curry has directed short animated films, commercials, and VR/360 documentaries.

He was one of twenty documentary and narrative directors (including Adam McKay, Catherine Hardwicke, Morgan Spurlock, Steve James) who were commissioned by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions to make a short film for the WE THE ECONOMY series. Curry’s light-hearted, AMAZING ANIMATED FILM ON THE DEFICIT was called out for special attention by the Wall Street Journal, and was widely-viewed on the numerous theatrical and online platforms that carried the series (iTunes, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon, etc.)

His immersive VR/360 documentaries about the people who decommission old airplanes (FUNERAL FOR A 747) and the indie rock band The National (SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING) have been released by the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to critical acclaim.

Misc: Curry is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was co-chair of Cinema Eye Honors. He was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of "25 New Faces of Independent Film," was awarded the International Documentary Association (IDA) Jacqueline Donnet Filmmaker Award, and received the International Trailblazer Award at MIPDOC in Cannes.

He has served as an advisor at the Sundance Documentary Lab, at the Camden/Tribeca Film Institute Retreat, and has been a mentor through the Johns Hopkins Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund, Firelight Media Producer's Lab, and others.

He has appeared as a guest on television and radio numerous times, including Charlie Rose, NPR's Morning Edition, CSPAN, ABC's Nightline, PBS's The Tavis Smiley Show, and others. He has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Duke, Columbia, NYU, and other colleges, and he has served on juries for the International Documentary Association, the Tribeca Film Festival, Hot Docs Film Festival, Full Frame Documentary Festival, AFI/Silverdocs, and the Gotham Awards.

Three of Curry's films have been a part of the American Documentary Showcase, a program sponsored by the U.S. State Department to share the art and practice of documentary filmmaking with the international community. As part of the Showcase, he has traveled to Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, and Ukraine to lead classes and discussions about documentary filmmaking.

Of Curry's films, S.T. VanAirsdale (Movieline) said, "From vérité campaign-trail flashes in Street Fight to intimate dinner-table powwows in Racing Dreams to the candid, point-blank interviews in If a Tree Falls, his films take keen and unique advantage of both access and timing... getting down to the business of communicating without distraction, discrimination or guile. At heart, the films seek to detail the spectrum of grace."

Before making films, Curry worked at a New York multimedia design firm on interactive documentaries and websites for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others. Prior to that, he taught English in Guanajuato, Mexico, worked in public radio, and taught government in Washington DC.

He is a graduate of Swarthmore College where he studied Comparative Religion and was a Eugene Lang Scholar.