Alex Anthony made her first film, Morning Born Blindly, in 1977, as part of her postgraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A 20-minute documentary about a blind couple having their third child at home with the help of lay midwives, it won top awards at the Ann Arbor and Toronto Super-8 Film Festivals.
Since then, Anthony's films have taken an even more personal turn. She is of Greek descent and spent her childhood in Athens, Greece, her adolescence in London, England, and came to the US to study art history at Wellesley College. Belonging to two cultures has always meant being both participant and observer for Anthony, and her deep interest in people and their stories found expression in nonfiction filmmaking.
Anthony is currently working on a trilogy of films with the theme of a family in crisis at their center—true stories that are stranger than any fiction. The first of these, the award-winning Yaya, was completed in 1984 and shown in festivals internationally. The second film in the trilogy, 2014's Lost in the Bewilderness, was shot over three decades and has played at numerous film festivals. The third film, Three Pomegranate Seeds, will soon be in post-production. Anthony is particularly intrigued by the parallels of these contemporary stories with Greek myth and tragedy—it’s in her DNA.
A true independent filmmaker, Anthony directs, produces, shoots, records sound, edits, writes and narrates her own work.
Anthony was also a film, video and avid editor for over 20 years for PBS’s award-winning series Nova, Frontline and numerous specials for national and international broadcast. Her work has earned her several Emmy and Peabody awards. Among the highlights of her freelance work have been working as a sound recordist with independent filmmakers in Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Mongolia.
Anthony joined the faculty at RISD in 1996. She loves learning from the students in her Live Action Senior Degree course. She has been nominated three times for the Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Academic areas of interest
Classical Mythology
Linguistics/Languages
Travel to remote corners of the world
Underwater exploration
World Cinema
Human Rights
Courses
Fall 2023 Courses
FAV 5197-01 - SENIOR STUDIO: LIVE ACTION
LevelUndergraduate
UnitFilm/Animation/Video
Subject Film/Animation/Video
Period Fall 2023
Credits 6
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
FAV 5197-01
SENIOR STUDIO: LIVE ACTION
LevelUndergraduate
UnitFilm/Animation/Video
Subject Film/Animation/Video
PeriodFall 2023
Credits6
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: T | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Alexandra Anthony, Ramon Rivera-MoretLocation(s): Auditorium, Room 330Enrolled / Capacity: 20Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This is a year-long course of study, for which the student will complete a 10-20 minute live action work to final professional screening format. Students are free to choose genres and formats in which they want to work. Students have weekly meetings for screenings, guests, and technical workshops, and weekly small-group meetings to discuss their works-in-progress. Fall semester covers pre-production work on narrative projects: developing of scenarios, location scouting, budgets, initial camera tests or initial shooting of non-fiction projects. Visiting consultants come in to instruct in sound recording and cinematography, and guest critics come in November to review project proposals and/or footage.
Department permission is required to register for this course; this course is not available via web registration. Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.
Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Live Action
This is a year-long course of study, for which the student will complete a 10-20 minute live action work to final professional screening format. Students are free to choose genres and formats in which they want to work. Students have weekly meetings for screenings, guests, and technical workshops, and weekly small-group meetings to discuss their works-in-progress. During Wintersession, the students perform production work in video and film, organize crews for filmmaking, review rushes and do initial editing and sound work on their degree projects.
Deposit: $150.00
Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.
Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Live Action
Spring 2024 Courses
FAV 5198-01 - SENIOR STUDIO: LIVE ACTION
LevelUndergraduate
UnitFilm/Animation/Video
Subject Film/Animation/Video
Period Spring 2024
Credits 6
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
FAV 5198-01
SENIOR STUDIO: LIVE ACTION
LevelUndergraduate
UnitFilm/Animation/Video
Subject Film/Animation/Video
PeriodSpring 2024
Credits6
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: T | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Alexandra Anthony, Ramon Rivera-MoretLocation(s): Auditorium, Room 330Enrolled / Capacity: 20Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This is a year-long course of study, for which the student will complete a 10-20 minute live action work to final professional screening format. Students are free to choose genres and formats in which they want to work. Students have weekly meetings for screenings, guests, and technical workshops, and weekly small-group meetings to discuss their works-in-progress. Spring semester covers post-production, editing, sound mixing, color correction, outputting, and a series of professional practice workshops. A guest critic reviews work in early April. Final projects are screened at a public film festival in May, which is reviewed by the local media.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $2,000.00.
Deposit: $150.00
Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.
Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Live Action
