Daniel Scheinert

Daniel Scheinert (birth name: Daniel Scheinert) is one member of the director pair known as “Daniels” (with co-director Dan Kwan), who has written, produced, and directed three features, after making dozens of music videos since 2010 with such artists as The Hundred in the Hands, Foster the People, Tenacious D., Manchester Orchestra and DJ Snake, whose “Turn Down for What” achieved viral status. Scheinert’s feature debut with Kwan was Swiss Army Man (2016), an absurdist comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano.

His follow-up feature was the only movie that he has directed without Kwan: the absurdist black comedy, The Death of Dick Long (2019), written by Billy Chew and with Scheinert himself playing the title character. His third feature (co-directed with 13 other directors handling one segment each, and co-written with 15 other writers) was the loopy Florida-set comedy, Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia (2020), which premiered at the 2020 Sundance film festival.

Daniel Scheinert’s second “Daniels” feature with Kwan premiered at the 2022 South by Southwest film festival: the Michelle Yeoh-starring science fiction comedy, Everything Everywhere All at Once, theatrically released shortly after the SXSW premiere. The project had been originally announced in 2017 under the Russo Brothers production banner.

After studying film and theater at Boston-based Emerson College, Scheinert made his first foray into narrative filmmaking in 2007 with the short, I’m Nostalgic. His first film with Kwan was Swingers (2009). Scheinert followed this with the next short he co-directed with Kwan, Puppets (2010). Daniel Scheinert, with Kwan, then began a prolific career (much of it under the support of Columbia Records) as co-makers of music videos, driven by kooky concepts, flatulence, and narrative drive.