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Thomas Allen Harris
Thomas Allen Harris |
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![]() | | Born | Thomas Allen Harris
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| Nationality | American |
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| Occupation(s) | Film director, Producer |
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| Known for | Documentary work |
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Thomas Allen Harris is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary artist who explores family, identity, and spirituality in a participatory practice. Since 1990, Harris has remixed archives from multiple origins throughout his work, challenging hierarchy within historical narratives through the use of pioneering documentary and research methodologies that center vernacular image and collaboration. He is currently working on a new television show, Family Pictures USA,[1] which takes a radical look at neighborhoods and cities of the United States through the lens of family photographs, collaborative performances, and personal testimony sourced from their communities..
Harris’ participatory practice grew out of deeply collaborative work he engaged in early in his career with a vanguard of queer filmmakers of color, including Cheryl Dunye, Yvonne Welbon, Raul Ferrera Balanquet, Shari Frilot, and Marlon Riggs. As a staff producer for WNET (New York’s PBS affiliate) on their show THE ELEVENTH HOUR, Harris produced public television segments around HIV/AIDS activism and its intersection with the culture wars from 1987-1991. In 1990 he curated the first New York/San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Town Hall meeting, a three-hour public television event which culminated in the broadcast of Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied. In 1997, Harris and 6 other queer filmmakers of color produced a document titled Narrating Our History: A Dialogue Among Queer Media Artists From the African Diaspora. This piece has been published in Sisters in the Life: A History of Out African American Lesbian Media-Making (2018, ed. Yvonne Welbon and Alexandra Juhasz).
Harris’ deeply personal and experimental films have received critical acclaim at international film/art festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Tribeca, FESPACO, Outfest, Flaherty, Cape Town, and the Melbourne Art Festival, and have broadcast on POV American documentary series on PBS, AfroPOP, the Sundance Channel, ARTE, as well as CBC, Swedish broadcasting Network, and New Zealand Television. The films include: Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela (2005), a story of the anti apartheid movement told through personal testimonies, archival material, and a cast of first time South African actors engaging with the archive; É Minha Cara/That’s My Face (2001), a mythopoetic journey shot completely on Super 8mm film by three generations of Harris’ family on three continents; and VINTAGE - Families of Value (1995), a mosaic portrait of Black families created by handing the camera to three groups of queer siblings, including Harris and his brother Lyle Ashton Harris. These films have re-interpreted the idea of documentary, autobiography, and personal archive through their innovative use of community participation.
In 2009, Harris and his team founded Digital Diaspora Family Reunion (DDFR),[2] a transmedia project that explores and shares the rich and revealing narratives found within family photo albums. Working in partnership with museums, festivals, senior and youth centers, educational institutions, libraries, and cultural arts spaces, DDFR organizes workshops, performances, and exhibitions that create communal linkages affirming our common humanity while privileging the voices of people whose stories have often been absented, marginalized or overlooked. The DDFR archive has grown to include 3,500 interviews with people around their family photos and 30K+ photographs. The project was developed in tandem with Harris’ film Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, in which leading Black cultural figures, scholars, and photographers share their archives with Harris in an exploration of the ways photography has been used as a tool of representation and self-representation in history. The film premiered on Independent Lens on PBS in 2015 and was nominated for a National Emmy and a Peabody Award. The film won the 2015 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary film, the Fund for Santa Barbara Social Justice Award, and an Africa Movie Academy Award, among others.
A graduate of Harvard College, the Whitney Museum of American Arts Independent Study Program, and the CPB/PBS Producers Academy, Harris is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, United States Artist Award, Rockefeller Fellowship, Sundance Director & Producer Fellowships, a Dartmouth College Montgomery Fellowship, and Independent Spirit Award nomination. A published photographer, curator, and writer with a broad background of community organizing in a socially engaged film/art practice, Harris lectures widely on visual literacy and the use of media as a tool for social change. His media appearances include C-Span,[3] the Tavis Smiley Show,[4] NPR,[5] Metrofocus,[6] AriseTV, and most recently a TEDx Talk. He held a tenured position as Associate Professor of Media Arts at the University of California, San Diego and is joining the faculty of Yale University as a Senior Lecturer in African American and Film & Media Studies, where he is teaching courses titled “Family Narratives/Cultural Shifts” as well as “Archive Aesthetics and Community Storytelling”.
Filmography
| Title
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Year
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Awards
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| VINTAGE - Families of Value
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1995
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- Best Documentary at the Atlanta Film Festival
- Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival
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| É Minha Cara/That's My Face
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2001
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- Best Documentary at OutFest
- Prize of the Ecumenical Jury of Christian Churches at the Berlin International Film Festival
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| Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela
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2005
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- Best Documentary at the Pan-African Film Festival
- Best Documentary at the Santa Cruz Film Festival
- Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking at the Roxbury Film Festival
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| Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People
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2014
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- NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary
- Fund for Santa Barbara 2014 Social Justice Award
- Best Diasporic Documentary Award from the Africa Movie Academy Awards in Nigeria
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Television
- Family Pictures USA (2019)
Awards
Harris is a recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a Tribeca Film Institute's Nelson Mandela Award, and United States Artist Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Rockefeller Fellowship, as well as CPB/PBS and Sundance Directors Fellowships.[7] Harris has taught, written and lectured widely on media. He has curated for Gay and Lesbian film festivals including Mix and Outfest. He has also held positions as Associate Professor of Media Arts at the University of California San Diego and a Visiting Professor of Film and New Media at Sarah Lawrence College.
His list of awards, grants, and fellowships include:
- Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
- Peabody 60 Finalist, 2016
- News & Documentary Emmy Award Nomination, 2016
- Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth University, 2016
- NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary (Theatrical), 2015
- Notable Videos for Adults, American Library Association, 2015
- Best of Show - Collegiate, National Media Market, 2014
- Best Documentary Feature Award, Baltimore International Black Film Festival, 2014
- African Movie Academy Award for Best Diaspora Documentary, 2014
- Fund for Santa Barbara Social Justice Award for Documentary Film, 2014
- Festival Programmer’s Award - Best Documentary, Pan African Film Festival, 2014
- Sundance Creative Producers Fellowship, 2013
- Sundance Music and Sound Fellowship, 2013
- Ford Foundation, Postproduction Grant, 2013
- A Blade of Grass, Fellowship, 2012
- Ford Foundation, Postproduction Grant, 2012
- CrossCurrents DDFR Roadshow Grant, 2011
- Rockefeller Foundation NYC Cultural Innovation Fund Award, 2011
- Best Documentary Short, The Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, 2011
- Tribeca All Access Nelson Mandela Award, 2010;
- New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship, 2007
- United States Artist, Rockefeller Fellowship, 2006
- Best Documentary at the Pan-African, 2006
- Best Documentary at the Santa Cruz Film Festivals, 2006
- Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Documentary Film, Roxbury Film Festival, 2006
- Independent Spirit Award Nomination, Truer Than Fiction, 2005
- Audience Award Honorable Mention, Bermuda International Film Festival, 2006
- New York State Council on the Arts, 2004
- National Endowment for the Arts, 2003
- National Endowment for the Humanities, 2004
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 2003
- Rockefeller Fellowship, 2003
- Best Documentary Award, Outfest, 2002
- Jury Award for Excellence in Documentary, Atlanta Film Festival, 2002
- New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award, 2002
- Best Documentary Award, San Francisco Black Film Festival, 2002
- Best Documentary Award, Denver Pan-African Film Festival, 2002
- Juror’s Choice Award, Humboldt Short Film Festival, 2002
- Prize of the Ecumenical Jury of Christian Churches, Berlin Film Festival, 2002
- International Filmmaker Award, Black Film and Video Network of Toronto, 2001
- Gordon Parks Award Finalist, Independent Feature Project Market, NY 2001
- Peter Norton Family Fund, 2001
- Paul Robeson Fund, Distribution Award, 2001
- NYSCA, Distribution Award, 2001
- Playboy Foundation Award, 2001
- Experimental Television Workshop Grant, 2001
- Peter Norton Family Fund, 2000
- No Borders Fellowship, the Independent Feature Film Market, New York, 2000
- The Ford Foundation Award, 2000
- Sundance Documentary Producers Conference Fellowship, 2000
- Outstanding Teaching Award, UCSD African and African-American Studies Project, 1999
- New Visions: Video 1999 Award and Residency, The Long Beach Museum of Art, 1999
- Pacific Pioneer Fund Grant, San Francisco, 1998
- WESTAF Grant, 1997
- Best Documentary Video Award, 20th Annual Atlanta Film and Video Festival, 1996
- Golden Gate Award, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1996
- Funding Exchange's Paul Robeson Fund Grant, 1996
- The Glen Eagles Foundation Grant, 1996/7
- The Lannan Foundation Awards, 1995 & 1996
- New York State Council on the Arts Award, 1995
- Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1995 Biennial
- National Endowment for the Arts Grant, 1994
- New York State Council on the Arts Grant, 1993
- Creative Time Inc. Award, 1993
- Banff Nomad Television and Video Residency, 1993
- Jerome Foundation Award, 1992
- Art Matters Inc. Grants, Spring & Winter, 1992
- New York Foundation for the Arts Award, 1992
- Experimental Television Center Artist Residency Program, 1992
- Whitney Museum of American Art, Helena Rubinstein Fellowship, 1991
- Lynn Blumenthal Memorial Fund Award, 1991
- Emmy Nominations for WNET/THIRTEEN shows: Karen Finley & Laurie Anderson, 1990
References
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