Arthur Bradford | |
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Born | Boothbay Harbor, Maine, U.S. | November 19, 1969
Occupation | Filmmaker, Writer |
Education | Yale University (BA) University of Texas at Austin (MFA) |
Notable works | Films: How's Your News? (2003), 6 Days to Air (2011)Casa Bonita Mi Amor (2024) Books: Dogwalker (2001), Benny's Brigade (2012), Turtleface and Beyond (2015) |
Notable awards | Emmy Nomination, 2011, Six Days To Air Audience Award, Tribeca Film Festival, 2024, Casa Bonita Mi Amor |
Website | |
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Arthur Houston Bradford (born November 19, 1969) is an American writer and filmmaker. He has published two books of short stories, Dogwalker (2001) [1] and Turtleface and Beyond (2015), [2] and a children's book, Benny's Brigade (2012). He has directed the How's Your News? documentary series and the Emmy-nominated documentary film 6 Days to Air , as well as the documentaries ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! and To Be Destroyed .
Bradford was born in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, the son of energy regulator Peter A. Bradford and painter Katherine Bradford. He and his twin sister, Laura Bradford, grew up in Maine and New York City. [3] They both attended Phillips Academy and Yale University, graduating in 1993. [4] After graduating, Bradford moved to Austin, Texas, where he worked at The Texas School for the Blind and began writing short stories and making short films. During this time he was awarded a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University [5] and later earned an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. [4]
After the publication of his first book, Dogwalker, in 2001, Bradford lived briefly in a remote cabin in The Northeast Kingdom where he wrote and published several short stories about the experience. [6] He later moved to Brooklyn, New York, in order to pursue filmmaking. In 2005 he became the co-director of Camp Jabberwocky, a residential camp for people with disabilities. It was there that he originated the How's Your News? series with help from South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. [7]
Bradford is the great-great-grandson of Felix M. Warburg and Simon F. Rothschild; and the great-great-great-grandson of Abraham Abraham and Jacob Schiff. A direct descendant of the first governor of Massachusetts, William Bradford, he was named after his great grandfather, the minister Arthur Howe Bradford.
Bradford's short stories have won an O. Henry Award [8] and have been published in Esquire , McSweeneys , Zoetrope , Dazed & Confused , Tin House , and Vice . His first book, Dogwalker (2001), is a collection of stories centered around his experiences in Austin and Vermont. His second book, Benny's Brigade (2012) recounts the adventures of two girls who discover a small talking walrus inside a walnut. It was illustrated by Lisa Hanawalt. [9] His third book, the short story collection Turtleface and Beyond was published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2015. [2]
In 2014, Planthouse, Inc. published the limited edition artist book Forty-Three Monsters by Bradford and Chuck Webster. Bradford contributed a comic narrative to accompany Chuck Webster's childhood monster drawings from the 1970s. [10]
Bradford was a contributor to the McSweeney's publication The Future Dictionary of America. He has also written outdoor travel stories for Men's Journal , Powder Magazine, and Nowheremag.com. Bradford has performed several stories for the nationally syndicated radio show The Moth and one of his stories, "The Quest for Chad", appears in the Moth anthology All These Wonders, published by Crown Publishing Group. [11]
While a student at Yale, Bradford created a public access TV show called Street TV which featured candid, man-on-the-street interviews. [4] He later taught a video class at Camp Jabberwocky, a residential camp for adults with disabilities and with several other counselors developed the concept for the documentary series How's Your News? . Early video tapes were seen by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker who became executive producers on the project. [12] Bradford directed the first How's Your News? feature film, a documentary wherein disabled and handicapped adults interview unsuspecting passersby in a cross-country road trip, in 2001. [13] The film was broadcast on HBO, PBS, and British channel, Channel 4. The concept was expanded and developed into a series for MTV and broadcast throughout 2009. Bradford served as executive producer and director. [14]
Bradford directed 6 Days to Air , a documentary that depicts the making of an episode of South Park , which premiered on Comedy Central on October 9, 2011. [15] It was nominated for an Emmy award in the outstanding non-fiction special category. [16] He directed the 2024 films Casa Bonita Mi Amor and To Be Destroyed both of which premiered at the Tribecca Film Festival. "Casa Bonita Mi Amor" won the Audience Award for Best Documentary.
He has directed music videos for bands such as State Radio and The Dandy Warhols. [17]
Bradford is the narrator and subject of the short film "Giants", about his efforts to save three 130 year old giants sequoias from destruction in Portland, Oregon. [18] The film contains original footage he shot during a neighborhood standoff with police as the trees were about to be cut down. He hosts a weekly live call-in radio show on XRAY.FM called, "Sex, Drugs, and Basketball" [19]
Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.
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Randolph Severn "Trey" Parker III is an American actor, animator, writer, producer, director, and musician. He is best known for co-creating South Park and The Book of Mormon (2011) with his creative partner Matt Stone. Parker was interested in film and music as a child and at high school and attended the University of Colorado Boulder, where he met Stone. The two collaborated on various short films and co-starred in Parker’s feature-length musical Cannibal! The Musical (1993).
Wallace Earle Stegner was an American novelist, writer, environmentalist, and historian. He was often called "The Dean of Western Writers". He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U.S. National Book Award in 1977.
Casa Bonita is a Mexican restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado, located within the Lamar Station Plaza. It first opened in 1974, and was originally part of a chain of Mexican entertainment restaurants that started in Oklahoma City. The restaurant attracted a cult following among Coloradans since its opening, and is considered by many to be an iconic establishment of Lakewood and the greater Denver metropolitan area.
"Casa Bonita" is the eleventh episode of the seventh season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 107th episode of the series overall. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 12, 2003. In the episode, Cartman misleads Butters into going missing in order to gain an invitation to Kyle's birthday party. The titular restaurant in the episode is based on the real-life Casa Bonita, a Mexican-themed restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado.
Miranda July is an American film director, screenwriter, actress and author. Her body of work includes film, fiction, monologue, digital presentations and live performance art.
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Philip Alexander Gibney is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time."
Scott Crary is an American film director, producer and writer, best known for having directed, produced, filmed and edited the film Kill Your Idols, a documentary examining three decades of New York art punk bands.
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How's Your News? is an American television series and also a feature film. It aired Sundays on MTV in the United States, and the feature film based on the same concept was released in 2003. It stars a group of reporters with developmental disabilities who interview celebrities and politicians. It is the continuation of a documentary film project started in 1999 by Arthur Bradford at Camp Jabberwocky in Martha's Vineyard, which was made into a movie of the same name and shown on HBO in 2003. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone serve as the show's executive producers. Season One had a total of 6 episodes.
Dominic Brown is an English independent documentary filmmaker, based in London.
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6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park is a 2011 American documentary television film directed by Arthur Bradford that details the production process of the American adult animated sitcom South Park. The film follows the show's hectic, rushed six-day production schedule, in which a 22-minute episode is completed just hours before its original air date.
Lisa Hanawalt is an American illustrator, writer, and cartoonist. She has published comic series, as well as three books of illustrations. She worked as the production designer and a producer of the Netflix animated series BoJack Horseman (2014–2020), and co-hosted the podcast Baby Geniuses (2012–2024) with comedian Emily Heller. She created and executive produced the Netflix/Adult Swim animated series, Tuca & Bertie (2019–2022).
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¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! is a 2024 American documentary film directed by Arthur Bradford. It is about Trey Parker and Matt Stone buying Casa Bonita, a Mexican restaurant in Colorado that was the subject of a 2003 South Park episode. Parker and Stone spend over $30 million of their own money renovating the decaying restaurant, going severely over the original $6.5 million budget.