Biography
Daniel Kremer is a filmmaker, film historian, biographer, professional film archivist, veteran home video audio commentator, and DVD/Blu-Ray extras producer. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated Temple University's film program, and currently resides in San Francisco. In 2007, while living in Philadelphia, he directed his first feature Sophisticated Acquaintance (2007) and was presented with four Best Short Documentary prizes for Yarns to Be Spun on the Way to the Happy Home (2007), a personal essay film about having grown up with a severe stutter. His second feature A Trip to Swadades (2008), which was shot on black-and-white super-16mm film, won three Best Feature Film awards. Following that film's international festival tour (which included Rotterdam), he moved to New York City, where he lived for nearly seven years. At one point, he studied to be an Orthodox rabbi, but gave it up to continue pursuing film.
In 2011, he completed his acclaimed follow-up feature, The Idiotmaker's Gravity Tour (2011). The film was lensed predominantly in India and is distributed on Fandor. Subsequent to that, he directed Raise Your Kids on Seltzer (2015), Ezer Kenegdo (2017), Overwhelm the Sky (2019), Even Just, and Countercurrents in the San Francisco Bay Area, using independent filmmaking icon Rob Nilsson's regular cast and crew. The first two titles respectively feature cult-favorite actor Barry Newman (Vanishing Point, Petrocelli, The Limey) and Sundance Film Festival winner Josh Safdie of the Safdie Brothers (Uncut Gems, Good Time). The critically lauded Overwhelm the Sky, distributed by Kino Lorber, was given special coverage for having been released in the classic epic "roadshow" format.
Kremer has screened work at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the Joseph Conrad Festival in Krakow, Poland, Maryland International Film Festival, San Francisco Independent Film Festival, Brussels International Film Festival, Glasgow Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Fantasporto Film Festival in Porto, Portugal, Rivers Edge International Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, and many other international venues.
His partly autobiographical cinema-themed essay documentary It's a Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie Point (2023) garnered raves from the British Film Institute and is now available online. His feature-length biographical documentary Cruel, Usual, Necessary: The Passion of Silvio Narizzano (2024) is the first work in any medium to cover its subject, and was released on Blu-ray from Australia's Imprint Films in July 2025. He is in post-production on the comedy-drama-musical Countercurrents, and has also edited many feature films for other directors, including one with Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope.
His first book, about the life and career of filmmaker Sidney J. Furie (The Ipcress File, Lady Sings the Blues, The Boys in Company C, The Entity), was published by University Press of Kentucky's Screen Classics Series in November 2015. The book was written with Furie's collaboration, for a series edited by legendary biographer Patrick McGilligan. In conjunction with this book, he is also directing a full-length biographical documentary about Furie, entitled Sidney J. Furie: Fire Up the Carousel!. Kremer also found, restored, and preserved Furie's long-lost sophomore feature A Cool Sound from Hell (1959), one of the first narrative features made in English Canada. His second book, Adventures in Auteurism: A Crusade for the Critically Neglected, features a foreword by Joe Dante (Gremlins) and an afterword by Daniel Waters (Heathers). His third book, My Lunches With Henry Jaglom: A Biographical Dialogue Starring Orson, Gadge, Marlon, Judy, Liza, Ingrid, Marilyn, and the Others, was published in March 2026, featuring a foreword by Candice Bergen and an afterword by Noah Wyle. His fourth book, now being researched, will be the first to cover the life and career of classic Hollywood director Irving Rapper (Now Voyager, The Corn is Green, The Brave One, Marjorie Morningstar). With David Thomson and Tom Luddy, he assisted in the editing of an anthology of Susan Sontag's writings on cinema.
As a film scholar, he has provided many dozens of DVD/Blu-Ray commentary tracks for Kino Lorber Studio Classics, Shout! Factory, AGFA, Scorpion Releasing, Code Red, Imprint, Vinegar Syndrome, Indicator/Powerhouse, Arrow, Altered Innocence, and Cohen Media, as well as essays for Twilight Time special edition Blu-Ray releases. He has also published articles for the Criterion Collection, Filmmaker Magazine, Talkhouse, Keyframe, CineSource Magazine, and other publications. He is represented by the legendary Georges Borchardt, the literary agent of both Samuel Beckett and Elie Wiesel.
As a Trailers from Hell guru, he is listed alongside other gurus like Guillermo del Toro, Luca Guadagnino, Eli Roth, Joe Dante, Edgar Wright, John Landis, Roger Corman, John Sayles, and many others.
In 2014, Kremer helped spearhead a feature-filmmaking collective in the Bay Area, with Deniz Demirer, Penny Werner, Jeff Kao, Josh Peterson, Aaron Hollander, and Kris Caltagirone.
