East Austin has changed dramatically in the last fifteen years and throughout that time a University of Texas film class has been making documentaries in and about the area. For the 15th year in a row, individuals, families, groups, and businesses in East Austin collaborated with the film students in the East Austin Stories class, led by filmmaker and professor, Andrew Garrison, to tell local stories in a free evening of documentaries.

In two screenings on one night, Thursday, May 12, the students will put up a screen to project the new works.  These include short stories about a family funeral home business; the first two residents of a group of micro-houses developed for the homeless; a haunting essay of people and places in East Austin; and life at the corner of Twelfth Street and Chicon. The film screenings will happen at 7:00 p.m. in the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church Parish Hall, at East 9th and Lydia Streets, and again that same night at 9:15, under the stars at Kenny Dorham’s Backyard, next door to the historic Victory Grill, at 1106 East 11th Street.

After the public screenings, the documentaries go up online at http://rtf.utexas.edu/eas. There is a stunning array of other East Austin Stories documentaries from previous years at the site that are a virtual historic tour of East Austin. For more information about this year’s programs, go to the East Austin Stories Facebook site.