Thomas Allen Harris

Thomas Allen Harris
Harris at the 2014 MontClair Film Festival
Born	Thomas Allen Harris United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Film director

Thomas Allen Harris is the founder and President of Chimpanzee Productions a company dedicated to producing unique audio-visual experiences that illuminate the Human Condition and the search for identity, family, and spirituality. Chimpanzee Productions' films have received critical acclaim at International film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, FESPACO, Outfest, Flaherty and Cape Town and have been broadcast on PBS, the Sundance Channel, ARTE, as well as CBC, Swedish Broadcasting Network and New Zealand Television. In addition, Harris’ videos and installations have been featured at prestigious museums and galleries including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Biennial, Corcoran Gallery, Reina Sophia, London Institute of the Arts and the Gwangju Biennale.

A published photographer, curator, and writer, Harris lectures widely on personal archiving and the use of media as a tool for social change. His media appearances include C-Span, the Tavis Smiley Show, NPR, Metrofocus, and AriseTV.

Born in the Bronx and raised in New York City and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Harris is a graduate of Harvard College and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program. Harris began his career producing for public television, for which he received several awards including two Emmy nominations (in 1991) for his work as a staff producer at WNET (New York’s PBS affiliate) on THE ELEVENTH HOUR. 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.

After the success of several experimental short films, Harris completed his first feature, VINTAGE – Families of Value (1995), a documentary that looks at black families through the lens of Queer siblings.VINTAGE won Best Documentary at the Atlanta Film Festival, a Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival and was broadcast on Free Speech Television in 1999.

His next film, É Minha Cara/That’s My Face (2001) a queer mythopoetic journey through the African Diaspora, premiered at the Toronto, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals and won seven international awards, including the Best Documentary at Outfest and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury of Christian Churches at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival. The film was broadcast on the Sundance Channel as well as on ARTE, the CBC and YLE.