deco dawson

Named one of the top 25 young independent filmmakers in North America by New York's Filmmaker Magazine (2002-03), and one of the top 10 Canadian Industry Trailblazers by The Reel World Film Festival, Deco Dawson has been achieving international acclaim for his body of short film work for a number of years.

Having directed and produced seven short films, including _Film(dzama)_, the winner of the Toronto International Film Festival's 2001 Best Short Film Award, and The Ann Arbor Film Festival's 2002 Best Technical Innovation Award, Dawson has screened his films in festivals across the globe. Of late, he has received five retrospectives of his films in Canada, at the Cinematheque Ontario, the Metro Cinema, the Pacific Cinematheque and the Canadian Film Institute and the Calgary International Film Festival, Internationally at La Enana Marron in Madrid, Spain, La Club Pipa in Barcelona, Spain, Le Collectif Jeune Cinema in Paris, France and a complete 15 film retrospective in Seattle, Washington.

As well as forming a body of short work and limited edition DVD art films, Dawson has also associate co-directed and edited the dance feature film entitled Dracula, pages tirées du journal d'une vierge (2002), with cult filmmaker Guy Maddin; the film won the Golden Prague Award at the 2002 Golden Prague International Television Festival and an International Emmy Award for Best Performing Arts. Together Dawson and Maddin have created a handful of short films with Maddin directing and Dawson both filming and editing, including the 2001 winner of the Best Experimental Film Of The Year Award, handed out by the Critics of Lincoln Centre to The Heart of the World.

Dawson has most recently completed and premiered two new short films The Fever of the Western Nile, a commission for a European installation tour and Defile in Veil at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. He is also in development on his first solo feature script entitled 'Lost Angels in Hollywood'.