Draft:David Charles Rodrigues

David Charles Rodrigues is a Sundance fellow and TriBeCa Award-winning Brazilian-American filmmaker, graphic novelist and creative director. He is known for Gay Chorus Deep South, Neymar: The Perfect Chaos, Omnivore feat Noma Chef Renée Redzepi and S/he is Still Her/e: The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary. David’s films are in the permanent collection of the Academy Museum.

EARLY LIFE

David is half Greek-American and half Brazilian. He was born in Chelmsford, MA in a very traditional Greek family on his mother’s side, but at 8 years old moved with his parents to his father’s hometown Belo Horizonte, Brazil. David lived there until the age of 24 where he grew up playing basketball and writing poetry, comic book strips, graphic novels and music articles for local magazines. By the age of 18 David had published a poetry book titled “Ironically Correct”, four graphic novels and dozens of comic strips in the local paper and culture magazines. The first international band he interviewed was Green Day. David went to the University PUC-Minas to study communications and while in his second semester already landed a job as a copywriter at agency RC Comunicação, where he began his career in advertising.

CAREER

ADVERTISING

David’s professional career started at age 19 as a copywriter in advertising. He worked for award-winning agencies in Brazil and then at 24 was recruited by top creative agency BSSP in San Francisco. He then went onto becoming an award-winning Creative Director at some of the top agencies in the world from AKQA to 72andSunny to BBH, and lastly co-founding the North American office of Dutch creative shop Kesselskramer, where he was Partner and Executive Creative Director for over 5 years. After he left the agency world, he began to consult brand-side, having since worked directly with a wide array of Fortune 500 companies including Airbnb, Apple, Adidas, Google and Netflix. David continues to work closely with brands on campaigns, branded content and product narrative, when he is not making movies. David was also on the Board of the Art Directors Club.

FILMMAKING

David emerged in 2014 at the Sundance New Frontier lab with his visually striking multi-media documentary MYTHICAL CREATURES featuring Disney creator and artist Gary Baseman; where they made art performances in Western Ukraine in collaboration with the families of the perpetrators as an act of forgiveness and reconciliation from the holocaust to the ongoing war in 2013.

In 2019, he wrote and directed GAY CHORUS DEEP SOUTH - winner of best doc at the 2019 TriBeCa Film Festival, a silver lion at Cannes and selected to Rotten Tomatoes list of the top 20 LGBTQ films of all time. It still holds a 100% rating on RT. The film was sold to MTV Documentary Films as its first Oscar contender and is available on Paramount plus. It’s in the permanent collection of the Academy Museum.

In 2022, he directed and produced the Netflix original series NEYMAR: The Perfect Chaos. Selected as one of the Top Ten documentaries of 2022, according to Esquire. It was one of the most watched docu-series globally on Netflix, making it to the Top Ten in over 50 countries with over 100 million viewers. The series is Executive produced by Lebron James and Maverick Carter.

In 2024, David is set to release the Apple TV Series OMNIVORE featuring Noma Chef Renée Redzeppi and his latest doc feature S/HE IS STILL HER/E - The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary will World Premiere at Tribeca 2024 -, about extreme artist, industrial music creator and cult leader that not only lived their art, died three times for it.

David is currently in development on HUMANKIND with Media Res, as well as The RUN TMC Documentary about the Golden State Warriors 90’s era with Mandalay and Slam Magazine; and CHOLO featuring Mayans/Sons of Anarchy breakout star Richard Cabral - about the origin of cholo culture from the native tribes to the gang wars to the cultural boom of today’s latino generation in America. A short they made together “Life of a Cholo” just had its world premiere on Nowness.

David’s films have been shown in over 100 countries worldwide, have won over 40 awards globally and have been included in the permanent collection of the Academy Museum.