James Spione

James Spione
Born	James Michael Spione United States
Occupation	Film director, producer, writer

James Michael Spione is an American director, producer, writer and editor of both documentary and fiction films. Early on in his career, he developed a reputation for suspenseful dramatic shorts; his later career, however, has been marked by a new focus on short and feature-length documentaries for both theatrical release and public television broadcast.

His film, Incident in New Baghdad, was nominated in the Documentary Short Subject category of the 84th Academy Awards.

A native of the Hudson Valley region of New York State, Spione graduated with Honors in 1985 from the Film Directing program at the State University of New York at Purchase. He first achieved national recognition in 1987, when he received a Student Academy Award for his dramatic thesis film Prelude, about an adolescent boy's solo journey into the Adirondack Mountains.

During the 1990s, Spione wrote and directed several other notable dramatic shorts, including Garden (1994), which starred fellow SUNY alumni Melissa Leo (2010 Best Supporting Actress winner for The Fighter) and Matt Malloy (Six Feet Under). An eerie period drama about a disturbed father's homecoming, Garden was featured in the Shorts Program at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival and played at numerous other national and international film festivals.

Spione next wrote and directed The Playroom (1996), starring Pamela Holden Stewart (The Reception), which was shown at the Walter Reade Theatre in New York City as part of the "Independents Night" series and broadcast on the national cable program "Reel Street." Spione also produced and co-edited John G. Young's first feature, Parallel Sons, which premiered at Sundance in the Dramatic Competition and was later distributed by Strand Releasing.

During the 2000s, Spione began to produce and direct nonfiction films. In 2005, he made American Farm, a feature-length documentary that focused on the predicament of his family's 5th-generation dairy farm in central New York State. The film premiered at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, and went on to play theatres from the Berkshires to the Midwest. Spione often toured with the movie and would hold frequent Q&A sessions at each regional premiere to engage the audience directly in discussions about the state of family farming in America.

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