NIM SHAPIRA | Filmmaker, Creative Director & Multidisciplinary Artist
Nim Shapira is a filmmaker and creative director working across documentary, immersive media, AI, and social-impact storytelling.
His work is often drawn to charged public spaces - places where memory, identity, politics, and emotion collide. Across films, VR experiences, AI experiments, and campaigns, he explores how stories shape what people notice, feel, and choose to believe.
His films have premiered at Tribeca, screened at Cannes, Slamdance, and SIGGRAPH, and aired on PBS. His immersive work has received Lovie, Telly, and W3 Awards. He has been a Research Fellow at MIT Open Documentary Lab, an alumnus of NEW INC at the New Museum, and a graduate of La Biennale di Venezia’s College Cinema VR program. He previously served as Creative Director at JOAN Creative, named Adweek’s 2022 Small Agency of the Year. His AI work has been featured by TED.
For collaborations: nimshap at gmail dot com
Short AI film: The Letter That Waited 45 Years (2 minutes)
In the early 18th century, astronomer Edmond Halley calculated that a Transit of Venus would occur in 1761 - and that observing it from multiple points on Earth would let humanity measure, for the first time, the distance to the Sun. There was one problem: he knew he wouldn't live to see it. So he wrote a letter to the future, explaining to people not yet born exactly when to look, where to stand, and what to record. Then he died. Forty-five years later, strangers fulfilled his request.
What followed is almost harder to believe than the science. Britain and France were deep in the Seven Years' War. And yet both empires allowed 120 astronomers to travel to over 60 observation points across the globe. For one moment, science mattered more than the war.
I wrote, produced, and creative-directed TRANSIT - a short AI film about this event — because the story wouldn't leave me alone. It looks like history. It isn't. It's a story about what happens when people decide, just once, that something matters more than their conflict. Not agreeing on everything. Not stopping being rivals. Just that. The wars are different now. The question isn't.
What are we refusing to do together?
Created & Directed by Nim Shapira, Tamir Avidor & Seffy Hirsch Concept, Writing & Creative Direction Nim Shapira Edited by Tamir Avidor VFX & Color Correction by Seffy Hirsch Original Music by Floris De Haan, Stardust Audio Sound Design by Rafi Chen
Feature Documentary: TORN PBS Distribution | 75 min | Oscar® Consideration: Best Documentary Feature
After Hamas kidnapped 251 people from Israel on October 7, a conflict thousands of miles away erupted on New York's walls. TORN captures the emotional fallout of the now-iconic "KIDNAPPED" poster campaign - a grassroots act of solidarity that became a flashpoint, igniting fierce confrontations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian New Yorkers. Through artists, activists, and hostage families, the film exposes a proxy war fought in stickers, slogans, and torn paper.
Executive produced by Jane Rosenthal. Read her Hollywood Reporter column: “This Film Will Make You Uncomfortable. That’s Exactly Why You Should See It”
"A film that presents questions, not answers." — The Hollywood Reporter
"Timely, powerful, and thought-provoking." — Forbes
"Shows a clear interest in people over politics." — Nonfics
[Visit torn-film.com]
Commercial: PETA × Starbucks — Vegan Milk Surcharge
The ask: get Starbucks to drop its vegan milk surcharge. The approach: cast Academy Award nominee James Cromwell as a fictional Starbucks exec gleefully profiting off eco-guilt, and dare the internet not to share it.
They shared it. Starbucks dropped the surcharge.
2024 Silver Lovie Award — Advertising & Marketing 2024 Lovie People's Award
360 Campaign: S&P Global - “Seek & Prosper”
After a landmark merger, S&P Global needed its first-ever brand campaign. Not a corporate anthem. Something that made people feel the company stood for something.
As Creative Director at JOAN Creative, Shapira led "Seek and Prosper" from concept through production: a campaign built around curiosity and discovery, with distinct stories for each of S&P's industry verticals. It ran across TV, print, digital, and social in 30+ markets including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, and Forbes.
“Seek & Prosper” Case study
VR Experience: Bystanding: The Feingold Syndrome
A drowning woman. A riverbank full of onlookers. What would you have done?
Bystanding places you inside the confessions of real strangers and forces the question: what kind of bystander are you? Built with volumetric capture, photogrammetry, and 360 animation, it is one of the few VR experiences that leaves audiences changed.
Premiered at Tribeca 2021. Traveled to 30+ festivals including Cannes, SIGGRAPH, and Slamdance.
Silver Telly Award - Immersive and Mixed Reality: Social Impact Best Virtual Narrative Experience - Lovie Awards Best Immersive Documentary Experience - W3 Awards
Supported by the Canada Media Fund, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Makor Foundation, Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, KAN, and Mifal HaPais.
Explore Bystanding
Teaser for Bystanding: The Feingold Syndrome
AI Experiment — "Blue Jeans and Bloody Tears" (Oracle x Eurovision)
Before AI-generated music was a trend, it was a provocation. Commissioned by Oracle to demonstrate their AI and cloud capabilities around Eurovision, Shapira created the first-ever AI-generated Eurovision song: a deadpan duet about heartbreak between a man and a machine.
It hit millions of YouTube views within hours, no paid promotion. It outperformed official Eurovision entries. TED featured it two years later.
TED Featured Video, 2023 Webby Honoree — Art and Experimental, 2020 Lovie Awards Gold — Internet Video: Weird and Experimental, 2019 Lovie Awards Bronze — Internet Video: Viral, 2019 The Wrong Biennale, 2019 · NeurIPS Creativity Workshop, 2019
Watch the experiment
Interactive Webseries — Walmart's CAMP Featuring LeBron James
Spring 2020. Every kid in America was stuck at home. Walmart built an online camp with 100 interactive episodes and 150 activities, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. Shapira directed the LeBron James episode: a high-energy, physical-activity webisode designed to get kids off the couch.
It worked.
Watch the episode
Commercial: PETA x Siri Update “Truth Mode“
What if your smart device actually told you the truth? "Truth Mode" opens as a sleek product commercial and ends as something else entirely: a sharp, funny campaign that uses a fictional software update to expose the reality of the dairy, egg, and meat industries.
Watch Truth Mode
Interactive Campaign - Nike Canada: "Play Less Nice"
Nike Canada wanted to celebrate the World Juniors Hockey Championship and sharpen their "Play Less Nice" campaign. Shapira creative directed a choose-your-own-adventure game built around one delicious irony: Canadians are supposed to be the polite ones.
Explore the campaign
Interactive Game - Warner Music Group: "Mind Blown"
An 80s-inspired trivia game for Warner Music Group's video catalog where getting an answer wrong comes with consequences. The host's head explodes. Nominated for a Webby Award for Best Use of Interactive Video. Extremely rewatchable.
Webby Awards Nominee — Best Use of Interactive Video
Explore the game
Installation - PETA: Boycott SeaWorld
To pressure SeaWorld during peak tourist season in San Diego, Shapira created and deployed the BOYCOTT SEAWORLD campaign: a semi-trailer truck running the city by day, an LED mobile truck by night. Hard to ignore. That was the point.
See the campaign
