TOWER

"Suggests Waltz With Bashir by way of Errol Morris … Tower is a fascinating blend of suspense and journalistic inquiry." – Indiewire

On 1 August 1966, engineering student and former US Marine Charles Whitman rode an elevator to the top of the iconic University of Texas Tower in Austin and opened fire on the campus with an arsenal of high-powered weapons. Sixteen people were killed and dozens more injured in America's first mass school shooting.

As the 50th anniversary of the tragedy tolls, documentary filmmaker Keith Maitland (himself a graduate of UT) presents an aesthetically striking re-imagining of the incident, combining gripping rotoscopic animation recalling A Scanner Darkly (MIFF 2006) or Waking Life with archival footage. Unfurling the day's horrific events in a beat-by-beat, increasingly tense vortex of panic and fear, the film surveys the day's victims and those who would become the its heroes.

Tower is a deeply moving, visually breathtaking examination of the shocking precursor to the mass school shooting tragedies of Columbine, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook, while revealing previously untold stories of self-sacrifice and heroism in the face of unspeakable evil.

Winner of the Grand Jury and Audience Choice award (both in the Documentary category) at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival.

"Tense, reflective and uniquely cinematic." – Variety