Third Ward TX
Directed by Andrew Garrison
October 17-25, 2007
About the filmmaker:
Andrew Garrison (director, cinematographer, co-editor) is an independent filmmaker who has worked on documentaries dealing with issues of community, culture and poverty.
His award-winning narrative, The Wilgus Stories, was screened at international festivals and broadcast on PBS. Garrison has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts as well as the American Film Institute. Garrison lives in Austin, Texas where he teaches film production at the University of Texas.
About the film:
In the early nineties, a step ahead of city demolition crews, a group of African American artists took over a block of abandoned, condemned, row houses in Houston's Third Ward. They wanted to start a dialog on conditions in the neighborhood by bringing attention to this forlorn, crime-infested site. What they had in mind was a temporary, “drive-by” exhibition. But they set in motion an unprecedented model for community renewal and personal transformation that has gained international notice. Their venture, named “Project Row Houses,” has created a neighborhood that is no longer a debased symbol of poverty and hopelessness. It is now a beacon of strength and imagination - a passionate and committed experiment in living based on a creative application of art, historical consciousness, education, and the creation of low-income housing.
Third Ward TX explores how this tidy little row of born-again houses has become home to cutting-edge public art and a home-grown challenge to traditional notions of community development. In fact, their success in creating a neighborhood that is safe, livable and desirable has attracted the forces that may destroy what they have labored to make-- real estate development and gentrification.
More than a decade after it began, Project Row Houses is still a pressure cooker of creative ideas. Will it survive the blind force of gentrification playing out in Houston and across America?
Opening Short:
The Language of Limbs: A Documentary of the Agrifolk Art Movement
Directed by Eyekiss (Documentary)
Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats discovers the last true folk artists remaining: 50 leyland cypress trees. Watch the drama unfold as these trees, outfitted with easels, paper and pencils, communicate through art...seriously.
Tour Dates & Locations:
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