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 from a Virgin's Diary (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'.
