Andrew Rowe

Directing

Andrew Rowe has always been obsessed with movies. As a five year-old child he believed the greatest job anyone could have was to work at a video store; not because of the free rentals, but because he thought they created the movies there. Eventually he discovered how films were actually made and what the role of a director was. This created an even stronger obsession with film as he realized individual directors imprinted their personal technique onto the films they made. He began watching as many films as he could find by directors such as Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Jonathan Demme, Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter and many more. Becoming a writer and director of films became his focus. Following the completion of a B.A. in history in 2006, Andrew moved from his hometown of St. John's, Newfoundland to Vancouver, British Columbia with the intention of attending film school. However, upon speaking to past students and current instructors he decided to withdraw from school, believing it was not the best way to discover one's creative voice. It seemed more like a trade school, preparing students to take jobs on underwhelming TV and commercial sets, as opposed to empowering them to be the next wave of innovative filmmakers. So he invested his tuition money in equipment and set about learning by doing. He started out writing comedy sketches that could be easily filmed for little money. In 2008 he formed the comedy troupe Wild Driver and over the next several years he would write, direct, edit, and perform in over 25 digital shorts. As he learned the craft of filmmaking he began moving more towards short films as opposed to sketches. In 2011, Andrew entered the Vancouver 24-Hour Film Festival and was awarded Best Writing and Best Acting Ensemble for his film Lies. His film was also the only one to place in the audience's top five (fifth) and the judges' top five (second). In 2012, his script for Sleepy Stories was one of six chosen to be made by the Crazy8s Film Event. It was a standout film and it went on to screen at the Whistler Film Festival and Atlantic Film Festival. Beginning in 2013, Andrew took two years off to focus on becoming a husband and father and to hone his skills as a writer. In December of 2014 his script and pitch won him the prestigious MPPIA Short Film Award, which is the largest short film bursary in Canada. The resulting film was Vehicular Romanticide, his most ambitious film to date. The film went on to screen at various film festivals where it won multiple awards. Andrew's first feature film, Crown and Anchor, is set for a fall 2017 debut.