Andrew Garrison, Director
Andrew Garrison is founder and instructor of the on-going class and doc project, East Austin Stories. An independent filmmaker recognized for his extensive work and longtime commitment to community-based work, he co-founded the Community Media Workshop in Dayton, Ohio and worked at Appalshop, the renowned documentary center in the mountains of Kentucky for over fifteen years. He is the recipient of Rockefeller, Guggenheim and AFI Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Media Artist Award, regional NEA awards, as well as juried prizes from festivals.
Garrison completed the feature THIRD WARD TX in 2007 (selection below). The film documents the efforts of a group of African-American artists in Houston’s inner-city to use art to reinvent a neighborhood and transforming individual lives, and in the process become an international model for community development. When the success of “Project Row Houses” attracts gentrification that would destroy what they have developed, they try bold and a creative strategy that just might work. THIRD WARD TX was selected for screening at SXSW, AFI/Dallas, the Southern Circuit, and will be on PBS in 2008.
Selection from Third Ward TX:
Garrison’s other works include the three-part narrative film, “The Wilgus Stories” (broadcast on PBS, winner of the first Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Film and Digital Media), “Fat Monroe” (premiered at the New York Film Festival, winner of Gold Special Jury Award at the Houston International Film Festival, Silver Apple Award at the National Educational Film Festival, among others), “Night Ride” (premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and named Best Dramatic Film at the Sinking Creek [Nashville] Film Festival, a Silver Apple Award at the National Educational Film Festival, a “Leopard of Tomorrow” award at the Locarno International Film Festival, among others). Garrison began teaching in the University of Texas’ RTF department in 1997 and is the Audio Area Head in the department and a member of national sound professionals organization, the Cinema Audio Society.
Garrison is currently working on an experimental documentary/installation piece originating in the Czech Republic, and researching a feature doc on trauma, survival, and epiphany.
Information on East Austin Stories
Information on Third Ward TX
Information on Prague Stories
More Information
UT Department of Radio-Television-Film
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