Director Keith Maitland’s new documentary, Tower, takes the audience back to August 1, 1966, when our collective innocence was shattered by a sniper’s gun.
Told through archival footage combined with animated recreations of the dramatic day, Maitland’s film recalls the afternoon when a gunman took the elevator to the top floor of the iconic University of Texas tower and opened fire. In what was a previously unimaginable event, the sniper killed 16 people, wounded 31 others and held the campus hostage for 96 minutes. The film is based entirely on first-person testimonies from witnesses, heroes and survivors of the tragedy and highlights the realities that forever changed the nation’s concept of homegrown human evil.
Tower won the Audience Award, SXSW Grand Jury Award and Louis Black/Lone Star Award at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival.
Following the DGA Special Projects Committee’s Documentary Series screening in the Guild's Los Angeles Theater on August 9, Maitland discussed the making of the film in a conversation moderated by DGA Special Projects Committee member Ondi Timoner (Jungletown).
In addition to Tower, Maitland’s filmography includes the feature documentaries A Song for You: The Austin City Limits Story and The Eyes of Me; and the episode “The Eyes of Me” of the television documentary series Independent Lens.
You can listen to Maitland’s Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find all DGA podcast episodes here.