Keith Alan Morris (born October 9, 1972, South Bend, Indiana) is an American writer/film director and producer. His most notable films include Gutter King,[1] Flying Tiger, and The Clinic, all of which screened at the Cannes Film Fest Market. He also wrote and directed the documentary R.U.B.s in the Guggenheim Museum's "Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit.[2] His next film is an adventure about a robot, currently untitled.[3]
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Morris was born in South Bend, Indiana, the son of Ronald and Susan Morris. He grew up in Indiana, where he attended Adams High School and Niles First Assembly High School in Niles, Michigan, where he was salutatorian. He won a scholarship to Kalamazoo College to study political science and theater communications, where he made numerous short films and two feature films, The Outside Man and The In Crowd, which won him the Cooper Award and Schneider Prize before graduating in 1994.[4]
Gutter King was his first breakthrough feature internationally and nominated for 3 awards in 2010.[5] It has been compared to the early films of Martin Scorsese in that "the violence is dealt with extreme care and respect, as opposed to the superficiality with which we are used to seeing from directors like Guy Ritchie, Danny Boyle or David Fincher."[6][7] The film later reached #159 on IMDB's MOVIEmeter rankings in June 2010, behind Zombieland but ahead of Back to The Future.[8]
Morris has written numerous scripts that haven't been produced yet, most famous of which is about a robot living during the apocalypse. After an early makeup test was posted on YouTube without the director's approval, he rewrote the movie's concept entirely, taking out all mention of zombies.[9] Sample approved artwork is available on an unofficial Keith Alan Morris website of his films, ufo-tech.com.[10]
After his latest movie Gutter King,[11] reached 2.2 million torrents and many more million downloads,[12] he is currently working on the untitled CGI project, set in New Orleans in the not-to-distant future.[13]
Flying Tiger screened at the Cannes Film Festival Market and won Best Feature at the Arizona Film and TV Fest, 2008. It was shot in Stockton, Missouri, with a student crew from Indiana (where he trained the students in the classroom for one year prior). Flying Tiger is about a senior in high school who can fly. The film’s success helped him secure funding for his next feature.[14]
Morris' first feature, The Clinic won Best Screenplay for a Feature Film (out of 180 films) at the New York International Independent Film Fest, and received representation at the Cannes Film Fest Market.[15]
Although Keith Alan Morris' films differ considerably in setting and characters (Gutter King is about a suburban teenager, his next film is a robot epic), they share similar themes of existentialism, violence, and spirituality.
Keith Alan Morris' style is composed of handheld based tracking shots and camera movement in general, and he uses his scenes to convey ideas with images, rather than with dialogue. Some have compared him with Martin Scorsese because of his foreboding, ominous style and his approach to violence comes from a prudent and responsible perspective of trying to understand the characters and the motives for their behavior.[16][17] Music also plays a large role in Morris' films and he works closely with Michael Kauffmann and the Asthmatic Kitty label and Jeb Banner of Musical Family Tree, both located in his birth state of Indiana.
(United Kingdom, Australia, Russia, Middle East); Nominations at the Action On Film Fest 2010: Best Picture, Best Breakout Action Star, Best Supporting Actor