David L. Cunningham

David L. Cunningham, born in Switzerland (February 24, 1971) and raised in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, is an international filmmaker. Besides his documentary credits in more than 40 countries, Cunningham has also directed several feature films including To End All Wars (2001) and the TV miniseries The Path to 9/11 (2006). Cunningham is represented by the United Talent Agency.

As a child, Cunningham traveled around the world visiting orphanages, refugee camps, and many other isolated locations with his parents in their work with NGOs. His parents, Loren and Darlene Cunningham, are the founders of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and the University of the Nations, an international, interdenominational Christian organization with campuses in over 100 countries with a special emphasis on education for the developing nations. These childhood experiences would greatly influence Cunningham's world view as a filmmaker.

Cunningham studied film and graduated from both the University of Southern California and University of the Nations (Hawaii, Amsterdam, and Santiago, Chile campuses).

Cunningham traveled with his father and took the first American crew to the remote Pitcairn Islands to shoot his documentary Pitcairn: Mutineers in Paradise. His earlier films took him to Egypt, Australia, and Hollywood, California. After filming parts of documentaries in over 40 countries, Cunningham made his feature film debut with Beyond Paradise. The film was a critical and commercial hit in the Pacific Region playing for three months in theatres in Hawaii.

In March 2000, Youth With A Mission students donated $14,000 in seed money toward his $14 million independent film To End All Wars (p 176) Shot in Hawaii, Thailand, and Scotland, the film tells the true story of WWII allied prisoners in a POW camp in Thailand who secretly form a “jungle university” in the camp morgue. Starring Kiefer Sutherland and Robert Carlyle, it performed notably well at film festivals including Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Heartland Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, and Mill Valley Film Festival). The film was later picked up for distribution by Goldcrest and 20th Century Fox.

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