Tim Ritter took a long and winding road into filmmaking. An aspiring comic book writer as a child became a sports writer for everything from local newspapers to regular contributions to The Associated Press news service. However, the creative itch was still there. So after flirtations with other forms of creative writing, he dug, journalist-style, into the filmmaking process, a natural extension of the visual storytelling found in the self-made comics of his youth. 

 

Using Robert Rodriguez’s Rebel without a Crew as his guide, Ritter started using an ultra-efficient, microbudget methodology long on resourcefulness and innovation and short on funding or traditional film resources to crank out his unconventional explorations of faith and morality in cynical, desperate worlds both modern and abstracted. In the last decade and a half, he has directed three feature films and half a dozen short films, which have played and won awards at film festivals around the world. His most recent film Echoes is just finishing up its festival tour that included being named Best in its Genre (Bare Bones International Film & Music Festival), Best Florida Film (Central Florida Film Festival), and earned Ritter, appropriately enough, the title of Robert Rodriguez Indie Auteur of the Year in Bare Bones’ 25th anniversary celebration. Previous feature films Testament and Moment of Truth, themselves award winners on the circuit, are available on a number of streaming platforms. Ritter also still serves as Senior Programming Coordinator of the Fort Myers Film Festival after serving on its founding board in 2010 and juries for a number of film festivals around the country.

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Ritter is an Assistant Professor of Film at University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he teaches primarily directing and screenwriting. He also still serves as Senior Programming Coordinator of the Fort Myers Film Festival after serving on its founding board in 2010 and juries for a number of film festivals around the country.