A former mechanical engineer, Miguel Alvarez is an award-winning independent filmmaker living in Austin, Texas.
His films have screened around the world and have garnered awards and support from the Directors Guild of America, Panavision’s Emerging Filmmaker program, the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, and the Austin Film Society.
His most recent short film, Piojo, is a near-future story about a father forced to confront his spirituality when authorities use a new technology to take away his memories of his son. Filmed at Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios, the production brought together current and former University of Texas students and collaborators in a professional, hands-on filmmaking environment. The nontraditional, largely non-dialogue film continues hiss exploration of family, sacrifice, memory, and spirituality through a distinctly Chicano lens.
Miguel’s previous film, Atlantic City, a tale of two drifters in San Antonio, Texas, was an inaugural participant in the Kodak + Kickstarter Initiative and screened at festivals in the United States and abroad. He is also a Screenwriting Fellow of the Latino Screenwriting Project, sponsored by CineFestival and Sundance, for his science-fiction feature screenplay La Perdida.
His “haunting” film Mnemosyne Rising, about a lone transmitter pilot in space plagued by memories of home, was described by the Austin Chronicle as “a mini feature… its look is ambitious, its truth sublime.” The film was later acquired for distribution by Gunpowder & Sky’s DUST science-fiction platform, where it's amassed nearly 300,00 views . KID, a film about a thirteen-year-old boy and his estranged father, was described by the late Bill Paxton as “a simple, yet beautiful film.” Tadpoles, a non-dialogue, purely visual narrative about the cyclical realities of war, continues to be taught in university film courses across the country.
Miguel’s documentary short on Latino voting obstacles, The Giant Still Sleeps, was commissioned by Emmy Award-winning producer and University of Texas faculty member Paul Stekler for The Washington Post and PBS. His short documentary Veterans explores his father’s and grandfather’s relationship through their wartime experiences and was called “poignant,” “somber,” and “a must-see” by Slackerwood.
Miguel holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MFA in Film Production from The University of Texas at Austin, where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film. As a filmmaker and educator, he remains committed to telling visually ambitious stories rooted in the personal experience, while helping emerging filmmakers discover and trust their own creative voices.
