Founded by two filmmakers with a background in art and design, Petter Ringbom and Marquise Stillwell, Opendox is a film production company based in New York.

We’re an experienced group of producers, directors, cinematographers, editors and musicians that come together to tell engaging stories for distribution and clients.

Founders

Petter Ringbom / Partner
Petter Ringbom’s latest film, This World is Not My Own, reimagines the life of Nellie Mae Rowe and premiered at SXSW in 2023. It has won awards at the Atlanta, Nashville, Palm Springs and Mendocino film festivals. His films have also screened at Tribeca, IDFA, Hot Docs, Film Society of Lincoln Center, BAM, The Smithsonian, Miami Art Basel, and Gothenburg Intl. Film Festival. He has been a Film Independent Fast Track Fellow, a Gotland Film Lab resident at the Ingmar Bergman Estate, a Midpoint Feature Launch participant and a Berlinale Talent.

Petter started his career as a designer and art director. After studying at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, he became a partner in the creative agency Flat, where he worked for clients like MoMA, Red Cross and ESPN. He has taught at Parsons School of Design and New York University, and served on the board of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.

Marquise Stillwell / Partner
Marquise executive produced Shield and Spear, The Limestone Conflict and The New Bauhaus, and most recently co-directed, This World is Not My Own. He is a filmmaker, designer and a catalyst for building communities and products across design, art, and culture. His career spans across two decades, and his curiosity for people and spaces developed into a passion for designing systems to make environments better for all people.

In 2009, Marquise founded Openbox — a design research and planning studio based in New York City that works at the intersection of people, cities, and planet. Making products and services work better for the people who use them, Openbox applies innovative approaches to research and implementation into the built environment, with people and community needs considered every step along the way. He has also co-founded Deem Journal, a biannual print journal and online platform focused on design as social practice, and Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities. Most recently, he acquired Stae, a go-to open-source data hub that allows people to visualize and leverage open city data in a meaningful way.

Additionally, Marquise serves as a board member for the Center for Architecture and on advisory boards for Creative Capital and Riverkeeper. He is also a member of the High Line Advisory Committee, a fellow at Urban Design Forum, and was a Founding Board Member and Co-Chair at The Lowline, the first underground park.

How We Make Films

In 2012, we set out to the Texas high desert plains to make our first film together, a short about Marfa. Since then we’ve made three feature-length documentaries, as well as a number of short films and commissions. Our primary focus has been stories about “creative underdogs”—artists, musicians, and designers who create in order to reflect on, escape from, or change society. One thing all of our projects have in common is that they wouldn’t exist without our collaboration: beyond the sum of our individual contributions.

Over the last decade, we’ve grown increasingly frustrated with our industry’s hierarchical thinking regarding credits, particularly its unwavering focus on the Director at the expense of other crucial roles. As Opendox celebrates its tenth anniversary, we’ve decided to change how we define the director’s role in our projects. We love making films. We value all aspects of the process—the crucial research phase, connecting with collaborators, defining a theme or concept, the long days on location, the many months in the edit room, and the thrill when it all starts to come together. Rather than the standard view of filmmaking as a top-down, hierarchical endeavor, we think of filmmaking as an iterative process, where all phases and roles interact with, impact, and enhance each other, each vital to the outcome. It never feels quite right that when the film is finally done and out in the world, the singular “director” is the only person recognized by the media, festivals and venues. Not only is it reductive, it feels like a missed opportunity.

Given that our work champions creativity and challenges hegemony, so too should the way we present our work. While we can’t change the industry’s value system, we can shift the focus for ourselves and highlight the collective work that makes our films possible.

The films we make are “Directed by Opendox.”

Contact

185 Van Dyke Street
Units 202-204
Brooklyn, NY 11231
USA
email: hello@opndx.com