My films have screened at MoMA Doc Fortnight, Lincoln Center’s Art of The Real, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Visions du Réel and others. I’ve worked as a cinematographer internationally, including the US, Brazil, China, the South Pacific, Europe and Central Africa, and have contributed to Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning documentaries. I work as an editor, graphics artist and sound designer on films and installations.
In Production
I’m currently developing two feature film projects: Supply Chain: a docu-fiction about crypto mining, and Saffron Highway: a narrative about saffron.
- 2021
- 32 min. (stream) and 149 min., looping
- 4K video, 2.1 sound
- Narrative short film/ installation
- IMDb
The Registry is a layered psychological horror film that marks Alex Tyson’s first foray into narrative storytelling. Drawing on the history of the U.S. military’s biological twin study, stock footage economies, and the cinematic trope of "seeing double," the film weaves intersecting storylines about memory, media, and family. Embedded within this narrative is a critique of how documentary subjects are tokenized, packaged, and traded by the nonfiction media industry.
Originally commissioned as a two-channel installation by Sheffield DocFest in 2021, the work was later adapted into a medium-length film and presented by MEMORY alongside the companion essay Twinning: Production Notes on The Registry [pdf]. The soundtrack was composed by Ben Babbitt, with an additional cue by Jeff Witscher.
“An evolution from his past works of formally innovative documentary film, The Registry is the artist’s first narrative work, an elliptical, layered psychological horror that brings together multiple storylines which intersect in complex ways. Embedded within these narrative threads are topics salient to the documentary/non-fiction field: the afterlives of images of war and their fictional representation; the potential tokenization of subjects, stories, and makers by the industry; and the ethical dilemmas arising from the commercialization of the stock footage market.”
– Herb Shellenberger
Curator, Sheffield DocFest (2021)
Curator, Sheffield DocFest (2021)