Garrett Batty
Garrett Batty is a film director, producer, and writer. His first theatrical release was The Saratov Approach, a 2013 film about two Latter-day Saint missionaries who were kidnapped and held hostage in Saratov, Russia. The film grossed $2.1 million and “shattered all previous LDS movie records.”[1]
Writer, director, and producer Garrett Batty first learned of the story as a film student at Brigham Young University in 1998. “In his own words, he ‘was fascinated by the news coverage and how widely the story was carried.’ He kept the idea in the back of his mind to make a film about Propst and Tuttle’s story. It wasn’t until the ‘Book of Mormon the Musical’ came out that he was motivated to ‘share a better story’ about Mormon missionaries.”[2] After interviewing the two missionaries, Batty wrote the script while recovering from unexpected heart surgery.
Batty made short films while growing up in Park City, Utah. He often attended the Sundance Film Festival held annually in Park City. In addition to filmmaking, he also participated in acting and improv comedy. He earned a film degree at BYU after serving a full-time mission in New York City for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
His early career included working in Hollywood and editing TV pilot episodes, trailers, and DVDs. He also worked with Excel Entertainment and Halestorm Entertainment, two Latter-day Saint film companies. In 1993, he formed a production company, Three Coin Productions.
In 2009, he wrote, directed, and produced Scout Camp, a movie that made enough money to reimburse all of its investors.
Following the success of The Saratov Approach, Batty wrote, directed, and produced Freetown, which depicts missionaries’ struggles during the First Liberian Civil War. He, along with screenwriter Melissa Leilani Larson, were awarded the 2015 Ghana Movie Award for Best Screenplay. It was nominated for a few other awards.
His next project was Out of Liberty, a 2019 movie about the imprisonment of Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, told from the jailer’s perspective. He wrote, produced, and directed Faith of Angels, released in 2024, based on a true story of the rescue effort for a boy lost in a mine. Batty also directed The Carpenter, a movie about an adopted viking orphan that becomes a carpenter's apprentice to Jesus, appearing at the end of 2024.
