David Mitchell Rosenthal is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He is the director of the films Janie Jones, Falling Up and The Perfect Guy.
Rosenthal's career with film began with writing and photography at a young age. Growing up in New York City, he began shooting and studying photography in high school, and started writing soon after. He earned a Masters in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and subsequently began publishing poetry in such literary magazines as The Paris Review. David's first book of poetry was published in 2000. In the same year he became a member of The Actors Studio playwrights unit with Mark Rydell. Rosenthal's love of writing and film soon led him to the AmericanFilm Institute, where he received another Master's degree. A year after graduating, his first short film, Absence was bought and distributed to networks around the world including Canal+, HBO Latin America, PBS, Encore, and Starz. His documentary feature, entitled Dylan's Run, which he produced and directed, followed the campaign trail of Dylan Glenn, who made history by becoming the first black republican to run for a congressional seat in the Deep South since Reconstruction.
Recent work
Rosenthal's first feature film, See This Movie, which he directed and co-wrote, premiered at the Aspen Comedy Festival. It was the first feature produced by Depth of Field, a production company operated by Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz. See This Movie, which starred Seth Meyers and John Cho, won the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Malibu Film Festival and was released in theaters in January 2006. In 2008 Rosenthal directed the independent romantic comedy Falling Up, which was released by Anchor Bay and Starz in early 2010.
''Janie Jones''
In October 2009 Rosenthal finished principal photography on his film Janie Jones. The film is inspired by his experience of meeting his daughter for the first time when she was eleven and he was thirty. Starring Abigail Breslin, Alessandro Nivola and Elisabeth Shue, the film follows the story of a down-on-his-luck indie rock star who meets his 13-year-old daughter who he never knew when her mother drops her off en route to rehab. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 17, 2010. It was also officially selected to the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011 and was released at the end of 2011.
