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C. A. "Crystal" Griffith, MFA
she/her/hers

 

Co-Founder: QUAD Productions

Cinematographer, Co-Director, Co-Producer, Co-Editor

​

C. A. Griffith is an award-winning, independent filmmaker with more than three decades of film production experience. Perhaps best known as co-director with H. L.T. Quan of the award-winning documentary, Mountains That Take Wing—Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama: A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation, (2009—97 min, distributed by Women Make Movies), Griffith was trained in New York’s independent film community. Griffith’s credits include the feature film Juice (1st AC) starring Tupac Shakur, PBS and BBC documentaries such as A Litany For Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (cinematographer); D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus's Branford Marsalis: The Music Tells You (camera operator) and Depeche Mode 101 (1st AC), Eyes on the Prize I & II,  

St. Clair Bourne’s Making ‘Do the Right Thing’ and music videos (as 1st AC) from Tracy Chapman and Public Enemy to The Rolling Stones.

 

As director, Griffith’s credits include an award-winning short, Border.Line…Family Pictures and her feature film debut, Del Otro Lado (The Other Side). Shot on location in Mexico City, Del Otro Lado had its world premiere at Frameline and screened extensively at U.S. and international film festivals. Griffith directed, co-edited and co-produced this Spanish language, independent, gay male, narrative feature film on love, AIDS and immigration. Her screenplays have made the finals of the Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs and won a top award from the Latino Screenplay Competition.

 

Griffith’s publications appear in Filming Difference, Black Feminist Cultural Criticism, Black Women Film and Video Artists, The Wild Good, the journals Meridians, Signs and Calyx.

 

She and H.L.T. Quan (School of Social Transformation - Arizona State University) are co-founders of QUAD Productions, 501(c)3. Griffith and Quan have co-directed, co-produced, and co-edited more than a dozen short and feature length, socially relevant documentaries including three films completed during post-production residency awards at the Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Studio (“Art & Tech”) program: Mountains That Take Wing—Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama: A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation, (2009—97 min, distributed by Women Make Movies), América’s Home (2014—Puerto Rico, 63 min) and Bad Form: Queer, Broke & Amazing! (working title). In November 2019, Griffith and Quan were honored to have Mountains That Take Wing screen as one of eight films selected for Picture Lock: 30 Years of Film/Video Residencies at the Wexner Center for the Arts. See: https://wexarts.org/explore/picture-lock-30-years-film-video-residencies

 

Griffith is currently an Associate Professor of Film and Media Production in the Sidney Poitier New American Film at Arizona State University (ASU). Her previous academic appointments include Columbia College Chicago, Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Griffith is a graduate of Stanford University (B.A.) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (M.F.A.).

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7000 N. 16th Street,

Suite 120, #318

Phoenix, AZ 85020-5547

 

MAIL:  

info@quadproductions.org

TEL:    773-542-3284

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