William Paul Smith
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
William Paul Smith is an Eastern Shoshone actor, writer and filmmaker. He was born on July 22, 1981 in Ashland, Oregon, and raised in Northern California. In 2008, he became a member of the New York based avant-garde theater group Dangerous Grounds Productions, founded by Doris Mirescu. His roles include Dennis/Pylade in the Off-Off Broadway productions of Jacques Rivette's film L'Amour Fou and the lead role, Jeff, in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Beware of a Holy Whore.
In 2010, Smith co-founded Cunning Folk Productions with Michael L Marshall, and he has since written and directed two feature films with the company, including Labor of Life, a portrait of a Native woman one day before giving birth, the day of birth and the day after birth. His 100 hour filmic poem, Izhar's Ghost, is a site-specific hybrid documenting the four-day deconstruction of The Wandering Veil exhibit in collaboration with Israeli-born artist Izhar Patkin and The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
William's film script, Headlights On White Roses, was a finalist in the Shore Script competition and won the WeDiversity award in 2018. The film is in preproduction with plans to shoot in 2021.
In 2010, Smith co-founded Cunning Folk Productions with Michael L Marshall, and he has since written and directed two feature films with the company, including Labor of Life, a portrait of a Native woman one day before giving birth, the day of birth and the day after birth. His 100 hour filmic poem, Izhar's Ghost, is a site-specific hybrid documenting the four-day deconstruction of The Wandering Veil exhibit in collaboration with Israeli-born artist Izhar Patkin and The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
William's film script, Headlights On White Roses, was a finalist in the Shore Script competition and won the WeDiversity award in 2018. The film is in preproduction with plans to shoot in 2021.
