David Borenstein
Biography
David Borenstein is an American documentary filmmaker. Borenstein lives and works in Copenhagen. Borenstein began his career in radio broadcasting and directed his first feature film, Dream Empire, in 2016. He spent ten years in China working on the film, shooting documentaries about the fringes of Chinese society. For this work, he received several nominations and won the Golden Alexander for Best Documentary at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. In 2025, he released the documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which screened in the main competition at the Sundance Film Festival.
Known For & Full Filmography1 Titles
Movie - 2024, 2h 15m • as Himself
A man lies in bed illuminated by the blue-white light of his mobile phone. He doom scrolls past cute pets, outraged opinion pieces and haunting images from the world's hotspots – and he feels absolutely nothing. With curiousity and humour, director David Borenstein travels the world to investigate how bad things really are. Who is pulling the strings when the internet makes us angry, sad, horny or just plain indifferent? And is there any way back? From the American internet troll, a burnt-out superstar in the Asian influencer industry, a cynical fake-news factory in Eastern Europe, Russian state propagandists and an online dominatrix, this is an alarming contemporary diagnosis, with a bold attempt to also look at solutions.