Film

David Riker

Princess Grace Award:
Graduate Film Scholarship, 1995

Princess Grace Statue Award:
2001

Additional Grants:
• 2014 Special Project Award
• 2012 Professional Development Grant
• 2017 Professional Development Grant

David Riker is a New York-based filmmaker, born in Boston, and raised in London. His debut feature, La Ciudad (The City), filmed in New York’s Latin American immigrant community, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won numerous awards including at SXSW, Havana, San Sebastian, and the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, as well as receiving the Open Palm at the Gotham Awards. His second feature, The Girl, starring Abbie Cornish and Will Patton, was awarded the Sundance/NHK Filmmakers Award in 2009.

As a screenwriter, Riker has received a number of prestigious awards including the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival for his work with Alex Rivera on the feature film Sleep Dealer. Most recently, he co-wrote with Jeremy Scahill the documentary Dirty Wars about the global war on terror. The film was nominated for a 2014 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, as well as the Writers Guild of America award for Best Documentary Screenplay.

The recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Annenberg Fellowships, Riker also teaches directing and screenwriting, most recently at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program