Sam Wainwright Douglas is a director and producer living and working in Austin, TX.

His current project, Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio, will be broadcast nationwide on PBS in 2010 followed by other international screening engagements. The feature documentary is about the legacy of the late architect Samuel Mockbee and his work as co-founder of Auburn University’s Rural Studio. The Rural Studio is an architectural education program in which students design and build badly needed charity architecture for poor communities in west Alabama. Among many honors, Mockbee was awarded the 2004 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal Award, the highest honor in the field, and a 2000 MacArthur “Genius” Grant.

Recently, Sam edited Along Came Kinky: Texas Jewboy for Governor, a film on musician/writer/raconteur Kinky Friedman and his independent run for governor of Texas in 2006. The film premiered at the 2009 South by Southwest Film Festival. He has also recently produced for the PBS arts show IN CONTEXT.

In April 2005 Sam completed the feature length documentary The Holy Modal Rounders… Bound To Lose, which chronicles the surreal saga of the infamous bad boys of folk, The Holy Modal Rounders. The film covers the band’s bizarre history and follows this dysfunctional family of musicians as they ride a popular resurgence toward their unpredictable 40th anniversary concert. The film features Sam Shepard and Dennis Hopper among other friends and fans of the band. Some of the film’s many screenings include The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, and the Austin Film Society’s Texas Doc Tour. Bound To Lose also screened at festivals worldwide including the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival, 2005 Melbourne International Film Festival, 2005 Denver International Film Festival, 2006 Atlanta Film Festival and the 2006 San Francisco Independent Film Festival. It has played many theatrical engagements in the U.S. and Europe and is now available on DVD.

Sam was an editor for Left Of The Dial, a feature documentary about Air America Radio that was broadcast on HBO in March and April of 2005 and is now available on DVD. He also edited a short documentary produced by the Anti-Defamation League, which won a 2005 Telly Award. In 2006 he edited and co-produced Near Life Experience, a feature documentary about Dan Asher, a volatile New York artist who struggles daily to overcome his autism in order to create striking art works.

In 2002 Sam edited and co-produced Raise the Roof, an award-winning documentary on Irish traditional music, which played festivals and aired on the BBC and RTÉ, the national television network in Ireland. Raise the Roof won the documentary prize at the 2003 Galway Film Fleadh and the 2003 Crossroads Film Festival in Jackson, MS. It also screened theatrically in New York.

Sam has edited a variety of television programs and promotional spots for A&E, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel and The Food Network. He has taught editing in the Department of Radio Television Film at the University of Texas. Sam graduated with honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1998.