Bio Short:Althea Wasow is a New York-based independent writer and filmmaker. Her work has focused on the experiences of outsiders and crime and punishment. Her film
The Wannabe is based on the true story of a young man who told another man’s crime story as his own and was wrongfully convicted. It won the Best Short Film Award at HBO’s New York International Latino Film Festival and screened internationally at more than 40 film festivals. Althea has collaborated on photography books, documentary films and new media projects including:
An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (co-writer and senior editor),
Rikers High (co-producer),
The Autobiography of Malcolm X Multimedia Study Environment (assistant editor),
The Innocents (producer and project editor), and
The Mark of Cain (associate producer). She is a co-founder of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP). She obtained her MFA at Columbia University School of the Arts and her BA at Brown University.
Bio Long:Althea Wasow is a New York-based independent writer and filmmaker. Her work has focused on the experiences of outsiders and cultures of crime and punishment.
In 2006 she completed
The Wannabe, a 35mm short film that she wrote and directed. In July 2006,
The Wannabe was awarded Best Short Film at the New York International Latino Film Festival (presented by HBO). She is senior editor and co-writer of
An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, an exhibition of photographs by Taryn Simon (the Whitney Museum of American Art spring 2007) and a book, of the same title, published by Steidl. She teaches in the Liberal Studies Program in the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University.
Althea was raised in New York City and educated in its public school system. She obtained her BA at Brown University where she graduated with honors (Phi Beta Kappa,
magna cum laude) and was awarded a Modern Culture and Media Department prize for her Honors thesis on African cinema and the avant-garde. After teaching history and literature for two years at Bread and Roses Integrated Arts High School in Harlem, she enrolled in Columbia University’s School of the Arts Film Division. She obtained her MFA in film directing with Honors in 2006.
In 2001 an experimental short video that Althea wrote and directed,
The Whole World Revolved Around Her, featuring artist Wangechi Mutu, was exhibited as part of the Queens Museum of Art’s show “Crossing the Line.” In 2004 Althea was the sole recipient of the James Bridges Development Award for Excellence in Directing Actors, Columbia Film Division’s only development award for MFA directing candidates.
While completing her MFA, Althea worked as the associate producer of
The Mark of Cain, (directed by Alix Lambert) a feature documentary on tattooing practices in Russian prisons that aired on ABC “Nightline” and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2002. She also served as the producer and project editor of
The Innocents (Taryn Simon and the Innocence Project), a photography book, documentary short, and traveling exhibition, that examine wrongful conviction in the American criminal justice system. She co-produced
Rikers High (USA-France co-production of Showtime Independent Film and France 2), a feature documentary about the experiences of teenage boys incarcerated on Rikers Island.
Rikers High premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2005 where it won the New York Loves Film - Best Documentary Feature Award. Althea also worked as an assistant editor on
The Autobiography of Malcolm X Multimedia Study Environment, produced by the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning and Columbia’s Center for Contemporary Black History.
Althea is a co-founder of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), a nonprofit organization that investigates the built environment by facilitating collaborations among advocates, architects, artists, city workers, educators, policy makers, residents and students. She serves as vice-chair of CUP’s board of directors. Althea was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and lived for one year each in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Paris, France.
