Joshua Seftel Biography

Joshua Seftel's filmmaking has brought him to Romania, Bosnia, South Africa, Costa Rica, Iceland, and across the United States. At age 22, he received his first Emmy nomination for his documentary film Lost and Found (1991) about the plight of Romania's 120,000 orphaned and abandoned children. Made for $2,000, Lost and Found helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and spurred American adoptions of hundreds of Romanian orphans. Seftel's subsequent films include Old Warrior (1994), Taking on the Kennedys (1996) chosen by Time Magazine as one the ten 'Best of the Year,' and the HBO film Ennis' Gift (2001), made in memory of Bill Cosby's late son, Ennis. His work has also appeared on Ira Glass' This American Life program, both on public radio and on Showtime. Seftel's award-winning narrative film debut was the sharp, satirical short Breaking the Mold (2003), a success on the American festival circuit that gained him notice as a director of scripted work. His feature film political satire, War, Inc., starring John Cusack, Marisa Tomei, Ben Kingsley, Hilary Duff, and Joan Cusack, was selected to premiere at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.