Academy Award® nominee James Spione is an independent filmmaker based in New York City. His latest documentary SILENCED has screened at film festivals worldwide, and recently had its European broadcast premiere on ARTE. His previous work, the powerful war film Incident in New Baghdad, premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary Short. The film was subsequently nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. Mr. Spione’s other nonfiction films include American Farm, which detailed the demise of his family’s fifth-generation homestead in central New York State, and a trilogy of poignant short documentaries, Our Island Home, Spirit of the Bird and Watermen, which explore the unique culture and history of one of the last rural coastal regions in the United States. Mr. Spione has also written and directed a number of fiction films; perhaps best-known is the eerie Sundance favorite Garden, a suspenseful drama starring Oscar®-winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter). His first film Prelude earned a Student Academy Award® and was seen at numerous international film festivals