Alex Avila

A.J. "Alex" Avila is a Texas native for generations. All of his academic degrees are from the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a B.S. in Radio-TV-Film (1994), an M.A. in Journalism (2009), and a Ph.D. in Journalism (2017). As of Winter 2021, Avila was a full-time Visiting Professor of Mass Communication at Huston-Tillotson University, an HBCU founded in 1871 in Austin, Texas. From 1998 - 2010, Avila was a national radio producer for the NPR program Latino USA. He spent four years as a Deputy Producer, six years as Senior Producer, and two years as Online Producer. During his tenure as Senior Producer, he and his team of correspondents was awarded numerous journalistic awards including the Edward R. Murrow Award by the RTNDA, The Robert F. Kennedy Award, the National Journalism Award by the Scripps Howard Foundation, The Gabriel Award, the Gracie Allen Award, and numerous awards by the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. In 1993, Avila co-founded and co-directed the Austin-based Chicano/Latino Film Forum, active until 1999. The monthly film series brought together Latino filmmakers and audiences. He has taught journalism and media communications at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas; media literacy and radio production at San Antonio College; and media production at Texas A&M-Commerce. He was a full-time visiting professor of mass communication at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor where he taught journalism and screenplay writing (he has more than 18 graduate hours in Radio-TV-Film). He also taught screenplay writing at Sam Houston State University where he was a tenure-track assistant professor from 2017-2019. In November of 2017, Avila premiered his feature film "Closer to Bottom" at the inaugural Austin Indie Fest, a drama about two brothers who deal with the death of their father and fall for the same girl. This feature narrative, written and produced by Avila and directed by Hollywood veteran Jesse Borrego, won Best "Made in Texas" Feature Film. In Spring of 2019, Avila was called to direct the screen version of the award-winning stage play "Vecinos," written by Austin playwrite Rupert Reyes. The romantic comedy premiered as "Vecinos: Love Thy Neighbor" at the Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival in April 2021 where it won a "Gold Remi Award" for romantic comedy. It later won an audience-award at the Cine Las Americas International Film Festival in June. As of November, the film was still on its festival run.