Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2016 South by Southwest Festival revisits the University of Texas Shooting 50 years ago, integrating animation with eyewitness interviews.
NEW YORK – Film Forum is presenting the U.S. theatrical premiere of Keith Maitland’s Tower beginning Wednesday, October 12. Executive produced by Meredith Vieira and Luke Wilson, Tower is an animated and action-packed film and winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2016 South by Southwest Festival.
The morning of August 1, 1966, was bright and sunny at the University of Texas at Austin. Students chatted, strolled to class, and sipped coffee at the student union; a paperboy made his rounds on a bicycle with a pal on the handlebars. But then a sniper rode the elevator to the top of the UT Tower and opened fire. He held the campus hostage for 96 long, horrific minutes, and when the gunshots were finally silenced, the toll was 16 dead, three dozen wounded, and a nation traumatized by the first mass school shooting in history.
Combining archival footage, hypnotic rotoscopic animation, and contemporary interviews with witnesses, Tower vividly recreates the terrifying events surrounding America’s first mass school shooting and reveals untold stories of unlikely heroes and victims. All too familiar today, this massacre was unthinkable in mid-1960s America.
Tower will be screened October 12-25 at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street (West of 6th Avenue), NY with screenings daily at 12:30, 2:20, 4:15, 6:10, 8:00 and 9:50.
Source: Film Forum
