Searching for Michael Nirenberg

I rewatched Searching for Bobby Fischer last night. It's a superb film about kids playing chess. It's like the Rocky of kid chess films.

The villain of the film was a little kid played by Michael Nirenberg. He was great in the film. Looked a little like Elijah Wood:

According to IMDB he has one other film credit.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0632552/

Find a grave has a page for him:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=15297672

Many pages on the internet list him as having died of cancer in 1996.

IMDb also has another person same name, born on the same day who is a documentary director.
Her confirmed on twitter that it isn't the same guy.

However, it also brings to question the birth date. It says this actor was born in 1978. That would have made him a teenager playing a 9 year old. Which doesn't add up at all.

So, the birth date of the director is probably incorrectly listed as the actor's birth date.

In the IMDB message boards we have the following:
Someone claiming to be his brother, saying he was born on Aug. 3rd 1983. He also claims he is now a chef:
http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2013/09/fulton_alley_hires_ex-tivoli_l.html

A poster claimed to be his mother and says he is alive.

Someone in the comments of this blog:
https://intensities.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/popcorn-love-max-pomeranc-and-michael-nirenberg-in-searching-for-bobby-fischer-1993/
Posted this:
"Max Pomeranc and Michael Nirenberg actually went to high school together! I was in Michael’s year (2001) at the Bronx High School of Science, and Max was a year behind us. I’m Facebook friends with Mike, so I can tell you he’s very much alive!"

If that's true then he is a chef:
https://culinaryagents.com/entities/32326-The-Bronx-High-School-of-Science