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Eduardo Montes-Bradley


Eduardo Montes-Bradley is an American writer-filmmakerThe Encyclopedia of Argentine Cinema. By Adolfo C. Martinez, 2004. p. 136.A Dictionary of Argentine Films. By Raul Manrupe, Ma. Alejandra Portela. Published by Corregidor, 1995. pp. 16, 63, 109. born July 9, 1960. Montes-Bradley has produced, directed, written or otherwise engaged in over forty films. Best know for his biographical works on Latin American writers and artist, Montes-Bradley as authored the yet most complete biographical research-essay on Julio Cortazar, as well as numerous articles on a wide variety of issues. His documentary Samba On Your Feet, a study on the origins of Samba traditions in Brazil as gained the recognition of the African American Studies departments in campuses across the US. Most recently Calzada, a biography on the Cuban-American artist was aired by WPBT Channel 2, PBS. Montes-Bradley is currently working on The Beimar Republic, a documentary focusing on discrimination against Bolivian silver mine workers abroad. Montes-Bradley was awarded a Silver Condor in 2002 for his documentary film Tells of the Helmsman.

Montes-Bradley was born in Cordoba, Argentina the second of two children to Nelson Montes-Bradley, founder of Discos Qualiton and Sara Kaplan, a piano teacher born into a family of secular Jewish immigrants from Poland and Bessarabia. The family name Montes-Bradley is the result of the union of two ancestors in 1893: Juan A. Montes Ziegler of Galician and German descent, and Elvira Bradley, descendant of Thomas Osgood Bradley of Haverhill, Massachusetts. In 1961 the family relocated to Rosario, 250 miles east of Cordoba and the second largest city in Argentina. By 1965 they are living in Buenos Aires. The cultural ambiance in the capital city and the relationship of the family with the arts were crucial during his formative years. He attended public school, was brought up agnostic and atheist in a progressive, predominantly left-wing radical environment. In 1973 Montes-Bradley enters High School at the Colegio Nacional Avellaneda. May 25, 1973, marked the end a long period of military rule. General Alejandro Agustin Lanusse steps down as president and Hector Jose Campora is elected on a Peronist ballot. Shortly after Campora's inauguration, former dictator and founder of the Peronist Party, General Juan Domingo Peron returned from exile in Madrid where he spent eighteen years under the protection of Generalisimo Francisco Franco. On September 11, 1973 Salvador Allende is overthrown in a bloody military coup lead by General Augusto Pinochet in neighboring Chile. It was a time of profound political turmoil. Montes-Bradley became involved as a student in political activism; first joining the Communist Youth, and later underground organizations. The deaths of Pablo Picasso, Pablo Casals, Pablo Neruda and Victor Jara, all of which also occurred in 1973, had a profound impact in an entire generation. Montes-Bradley will frequently recall 1973 as turning point: "Not because of anything that I might have believed on then, which I most certainly dont believe in now, convictions come and go; but because of the extraordinary experience of living in a home full of music and poetry within the boundaries of a country at the brink Civil War." Three years later, General Jorge Rafael Videla ousted General Perons third wife and his widow inaugurating an new era of terror which resulted in the death of thousands, thousands more joining the ranks of the desaparecidos and thousands forced into exile.

Shortly after the military coup of 1976 -which overthrew the reckless government of Isabel Peron - Montes-Bradley migrated to the United States taking up residence in New York City. In the late seventies he worked as a journalist for The Hollywood Reporter and El Heraldo del Cine, trade publications in the film industry. His first contribution to film can be traced to Margareta Vinterhedens Man maste ju leva, Sweden, 1978. During the same period (late seventies early eighties) Montes-Bradley worked in a few documentaries about the political conflict in Central America. In 1984, after the fallout of his first marriage to Brenda Lyons, Montes-Bradley moved to California and started his own publication: The Entertainment Herald, a bilingual trade magazine on film. The Entertainment Herald was financially supported with advertising from Cannon Films a production and distribution conglomerate owned by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. The Entertainment Herald was published for two consecutive years in the mid-eighties. By 1986, EM-B was working as a Director of International Sales for Filmtrust Motion Pictures, a production and distribution company based in Los Angeles, California owned by Marcvo Colombo and Christian Halsey-Solomon. In 1989 EM-B teamed-up with Spanish producer Javier Gracia to write, produce and direct two thrillers that gained worldwide distribution through Columbia Tri-Star. In 1995 Montes-Bradley married Sandra Ballesteros, leading-lady of his third and last known fiction flick: The Kid Napping. Since then, Montes-Bradley has produced written and directed over forty biographical documentaries, many under heteronyms based on fictitious characters such as Diana Hunter, the blind director-lady who "one day went deep into to the forest and was forever lost" or Rita Clavel. The actual number of pen-names used by Montes-Bradley is uncertain but frequent and constant in his work as a filmmaker and a writer. Eduardo Montes-Bradley is currently married to producer Soledad Liendo, they have two children.

Related websites

www.cronistasdecine.org.ar

The Heritage Film Project

Biography, Notes On Myself by Eduardo Montes-Bradley

Interview at the Toulouse University

Les cinemas de la Amerique Latine

Contrakultura Channel, YouTube

The Filmmakers Library

Greenacord

Thomas Osgood Bradley Foundation

Amazon.com Search Results

Mar del Plata Film Festival

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Eduardo Montes-Bradley


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