Occupation Film director Name Daniel Junge | Role Filmmaker Education Colorado College | |
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Awards Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject, News & Documentary Emmy Award for Best Documentary Nominations News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism – Long Form Movies Saving Face, Beyond the Brick: A LEGO Bri, Being Evel, Fight Church, Iron Ladies of Liberia Similar People Kief Davidson, Sharmeen Obaid‑Chinoy, Davis Coombe, Jeff Tremaine, Mat Hoffman | ||
Meet the Artist '15: Daniel Junge - Sundance Film Festival
Daniel Junge is an American documentary filmmaker. On February 26, 2012, he won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) for the film Saving Face, which he co-directed along with Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. He currently lives in Denver, Colorado.
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Life and career
Raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Junge is an alumnus of Cheyenne East High School and Colorado College. Junge made his feature debut with Chiefs, a documentary about the Wyoming Indian High School basketball team. The film won the Grand Jury Award at the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast on PBS's Independent lens. Junge was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of their "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2002.
Other feature documentaries by Junge include Iron Ladies of Liberia which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and aired on over 50 broadcasters as part of the "Why Democracy" series and They Killed Sister Dorothy which won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival and broadcast on HBO.
In 2010, Junge received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary, Short Subject for his film The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner, about Washington’s former governor and his work on die-with-dignity legislation. It aired on HBO. His film Saving Face was also made for HBO and first aired on March 8, 2012.
In 2012, Junge was extended a membership invitation to The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 2014, Junge and Oscar-Nominated Director Kief Davidson co-directed A_Lego_Brickumentary with Jason Bateman as the narrator. The film explores the brick that has captured imaginations for generations and looks at the fundamental question- is it a toy or something more? The narrative takes us through art galleries full of LEGO creations, introduces us to Master Builders designing and creating life-sized LEGO models, leads us into the world of LEGO therapy, and explores the essential nature of human creativity and the ways we seek to build and understand our world.
In 2015, Junge directed Being Evel, a documentary on the real story behind the myth of American icon Robert 'Evel' Knievel and his legacy.
Junge is currently co-directing a documentary entitled Alpha Boys that follows the history and current students at Alpha Boys School which has created many of Jamaica's top musicians.