Dominic Haxton was born and raised in Sonoma County, CA, the heart of Northern California’s wine country. While in high school, he became interested in film after writing an English paper on Elia Kazan’s influence on the 20th century, particularly in regards to how his films dealt with social issues. Using Kazan as inspiration, he starting making short videos that explored issues relating to the racial and socio-economic divide that exist in the community between the Hispanic immigrants who work in the wine vineyards and the Caucasian suburbanites who populate this region. Thanks to the exposure and recognition from these videos, he was awarded a college academic scholarship from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. This scholarship gave him the life-changing opportunity to pursue his filmmaking aspirations at the University of Southern California’s prestigious film school.

Since graduating from USC film school, Haxton has worked on several TV shows and films, including the Academy Award winning feature, The Help. His recent short film, Teens Like Phil, about high school bullying has won three awards to date and played at over 30 film festivals around the world, including LACMA’s Young Director’s Night. Haxton’s goal as a filmmaker is to continue making dramatic, thought-provoking work that addresses socially relevant issues; films that are made for a wider audience in order to promote tolerance, acceptance, and social/political change.