20 Filmmakers To See At SXSW 2022!

After a two year hiatus, Austin School of Film is thrilled to continue our partnership with SXSW with our Austin School of Film x SXSW 2022 Showcase.

This year’s SXSW showcase includes twenty student films from 2019-2022 that span genres, mediums, and emotional tones. All films were made in locally through production-based courses at Austin School of Film including Digital Filmmaking, Documentary Filmmaking, and Avant-Garde & Experimental Filmmaking. 

Austin School of Film continually strives to break borders and barriers within the arts, most of the local, independent filmmakers featured are new to the discipline and each approach their films with fresh, unique perspectives. The featured films will expand the audience’s ideas of who, how, and where you can make films. Much of Austin’s film community will be present to engage with the films and filmmakers at the showcase.

Austin School of Film x SXSW 2022 Showcase is an incredible, free opportunity to both enjoy and engage in Austin’s independent film community.

See more details about the films, filmmakers, and event details below: 

Chris Mason (she/her)

Chris (Spinning Goat) is an independent documentary and experimental filmmaker based in Austin, TX. Influenced by her working-class roots in Pittsburgh, PA, her work is devoted to sharing stories of artists and activists, with a focus on underrepresented populations. An avid fan of abstract and experimental film, she loves to combine original footage with found footage, music, and spoken word to create dynamic experiences.

Amal Morse (she/her)

Amal is a documentary filmmaker. Through her work, she aspires to bring awareness to social and environmental issues, and to inspire women to become agents of change in their communities. She was born and raised in Morocco, and is now based in Austin, TX.

Joseph Doss (he/him)

Joseph s is a filmmaker and musician from Austin, Texas. He is constantly learning and developing his skill in the industry and hopes to film regularly in his hometown.

Blaze Heru (he/him)

Blaze is a filmmaker from New Orleans, Louisiana. After spending many years as a professional Photographer, he transitioned to the world of film. Continuing the praxis of his photography, Blaze's, or, "Heru" as he is sometimes called, work tells stories of the communities he intersects. Films he has lensed include "Big Chief Black Hawk", a Documentary which centers the youngest Mardi Gras Indian Chief in New Orleans, as he shares his experience with racism, police brutality, and the effects the pandemic has had on masking culture. Big Chief had it's World Premiere at American Black Film Festival, and was rated as Off Beat Magazine's number one film from Hollywood South.

Andras Ausar (he/him)

Andras is an African descendant who discovered film making through writing and critiquing various films in different genres. Decided to produce and direct his own films after examining his own work and realizing he could do it much better. He’s artistic ability is not bound by the usual box of “black filmmaker” but defined by his unusual ability to jump genres at will.

Miranda Viskatis (she/her)

As a first-generation American who grew up in-between Argentine and American cultures, Miranda Viskatis is fixated on identity and memory, and how it relates to Being in time and in space. She is continually attempting to represent this relationship in her work; a process which leads her to a nebulous realm, where subjectivity reigns, and things are constantly shifting— including one’s perception.

Alexis Mayfield (she/her)

Alexis is a roun’ da way jawn, scholar, and artist. As an English PhD candidate, Alexis explores pleasure as epistemology and play as methodology and their inherency to Black femme’s survival and freedom. In her art, Alexis utilizes play, experimentation, and ancestral connection to make meaning of her senses. In her free time you can find Alexis watching TV, trying new recipes, or twerking in the mirror.

Christian Ricketts (he/him)

Christian is a comedian and artist formerly from Pflugerville, previously Portland. Christian's stuff is usually operates somewhere between self amusing nonsense and self-effacing critique of culture.

Nicole Oglesby (she/her)

Nicole is an interdisciplinary artist who crafts raw, poetic stories about magic survival, and transformation. Co-founder of the Austin-based theatre company, the Heartland Theatre Collective, Nicole has received regional and national acclaim for her original plays.

Ian Johnson (he/him)

Ian is an Austin based (but usually on the road) artist, photographer and film maker. His work ranges from the practical to the absurd but tends to migrate towards travel, documentary and events of all kinds.

Sabrina Dennis (she/her)

Sabrina is an Austin based photographer and visual artist originally from San Antonio. Her work consists of capturing how she sees the world on a daily basis combined with trying to portray fantasy and dream like imagery from her imagination.Lee MoonAnyLee Moon is an AFAB, queer, multidisciplinary poet of Northern European descent who lives nomadically in what is now known as the western United States. Their work explores the dovetailing of polarities such as decay and regeneration as it pertains to relational alchemy.

Devynn Montoya (they/them)

Devynn is a filmmaker based out of Austin. They graduated from the University of North Texas in 2017 BA in Radio, Television, and Film. Montoya grew up fascinated with film and developed a passion for camera and photography when they started taking photos at concerts in their teenage years. As an artist, their work tends to focus on perception and gender.

Lenny Gonzalez (he/him)

Lenny Gonzalez is an experimental film maker, musician and composer based in Austin, TX. His work studies the abstraction of light, shadow and motion with the human body and the subconscious.

Paula Horstman (she/her

Paula is an art-enthusiast based in Austin. Her current body of work is in portrait photography, which focuses on capturing people living out their life's passions.

Sam Stanbery (he/him)

Sam is an Austin based creative currently in film school and exploring multiple outlets with hopes of pursuing a more rewarding career in a creative field.

Tiara Jackson (they/them)

Jackson is a Black Fat Femme from Richmond, CA and based in New Orleans. They are a sensuous gatherer of archival remains and a collaborator with the dead. They are currently completing their PhD. in Comparative Literature

Hayes Morrison (they/them)

Hayes is a non-binary filmmaker, video artist and tattooer from East Austin. Their work is focused on distorted self perception, sexual trauma and gender performance, often inspired by their experiences with Autism Spectrum Disorder, PTSD and gender dysphoria.

Sandra Urquhart (she/her)

Sandra never had an interest in the topic of war, until she met Elizabeth Ellis, the subject of her documentary short film Remnant. After learning Elizabeth was a WWII survivor and actually lived under Hitler and Stalin’s brutal war machines she had to know more. She began recording Elizabeth, as she shared her chilling childhood experiences of oppression, homelessness, starvation and acts of violence under Russian control. Sandra enrolled in Documentary Filmmaking at Austin School of Film and Remnant was born, a slice-of-life film intended to introduce audiences to the amazing person Elizabeth is today. Instructor Matt
Koshmrl encouraged his doc students to submit their films to the ASOF/SXSW showcase. To date, Remnant has screened in five festivals and two showcases. Sandra shares, “I’ve been trying to tell Elizabeth’s story for ten years, what happened to her when Russia invaded East Prussia, and now it’s happening again in the Ukraine. It’s hard to believe.” The duo is currently producing a podcast and short film about Elizabeth’s story.

Austin School of Film x SXSW 2022 Showcase is on March 12, 2022 at 2pm at Austin Film Society. It is free and open to the public on a first come first serve basis, no badge or wristband is required. Our 90 minute program will show all twenty films with introduction by Motion Media Art Program’s Co-Executive Director Faiza Kracheni. 

Written by Emma Johnson (they/them), Social Media intern

Emma Johnson is a 20-something year old white, queer, nonbinary filmmaker who is interested in independent film engagement and marketing. Their films and creative work center queerness and question how systems of racial capitalism affect interpersonal relationships. They have a background in Sociology and are interested in creating art that questions dominant power structures such as whiteness and heteropatriarchy. Their creative content includes visual poetry, narrative, and documentary film styles as well as poetry and film photo collage. Outside of film and writing, they enjoy bike rides, reading memoirs, and sharing food with loved ones.