Maureen Bradley

Last updated
Mo Bradley
Bornc. 1967 (age 56–57)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Education Concordia University
Occupation(s)filmmaker, professor, media artist, and curator

Mo Bradley (formerly Maureen Bradley; born c. 1967 [1] ) is a Canadian film director, producer, screenwriter, media artist, professor, and curator. [2] [3] They have produced over fifty short films and their work has been recognized internationally. [2] [4] Through their work, Bradley challenges traditional gender norms and opposes the heteronormativity that dominates the television and film industry. [3] Bradley's focus is to bring nontraditional representations of sex, gender, and sexuality to the forefront of film. [3] Bradley's work predominantly features queer characters and themes, including their first feature film, Two 4 One . [3] [5] [6] [7] In 2017, Bradley became a professor at the University of Victoria in the Writing Department. [2] [8]

Contents

Early life and education

Bradley was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. [8] They grew up with a love of music and sound, and in their early years, pursued this love as a bassist in the underground music scene in Montréal, in the band "Sons of the Desert". [2] [8] Later, Bradley discovered their interest in editing, film, and media art. [2] [8] Since then, Bradley has played an active role in the Canadian independent film community. Their work has been featured in major venues, including the New Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art. [2] [8]

Bradley attended Concordia University for Communications and Media Studies. [2] Upon their relocation to Vancouver, they furthered their education at the University of British Columbia. There, Bradley received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Film Production. [2] [3]

Career

During their career as a Montréal-based bassist, Bradley received a VideoFACT production grant to create a music video. [2] [8] From there, Bradley became interested in filmmaking and media studies and later became an assistant professor of film production at the University of Regina. During their time in Regina, they were the Saskatchewan District Council of the Directors Guild of Canada's first female director in 2002. [2] [8] Bradley then returned to British Columbia and became an associate professor at the University of Victoria's Writing Department. In 2017, they became a full professor at the University of Victoria, where they continue to teach film and video. [2] [9] Using a grant they received from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Bradley brought the Hi-Def Story Incubator Lab to life at the University of Victoria. [8]

Bradley has been active in the film community across Canada since 1988. [9] Their work in the Canadian film scene has been focused on challenging typical gender norms and binaries. [3] [4] While directing and appearing in the series Road Movies in 1992, Bradley became one of the first people ever to publicly come out on a network Canadian television series. [4] [8]

Bradley has contributed to various film associations within Canada, including Queer City Cinema, Video In, and the Independent Media Arts Alliance of Canada. They are also the former president of the Board of Directors of CineVic Society of Independent Filmmakers. [2] [8]

Two 4 One

Bradley's most notable work to date is their debut feature film, Two 4 One. The idea for the film was inspired when Bradley and their partner were reading a guide for lesbians interested in pregnancy. [10] It tells the story of transgender man, Adam, his ex-girlfriend Miriam, and how they both end up—half accidentally, half intentionally—pregnant. [3] [5] [6] [7] [11] The film stars Canadian actors Gavin Crawford, Naomi Snieckus and Gabrielle Rose. [5] [12] Bradley has stated that they are working towards creating a broader representation of family planning in film, branching out from traditional heterosexual conception. [11] Two 4 One has received a great deal of positive feedback, including favourable reviews from The National Post and The Globe and Mail . [13]

Personal life

Bradley is queer. [14] They reside in Victoria, British Columbia.

Growing up, Bradley most identified with the label androgynous, finding that they did not fit into the typical categories of male or female. [4] [14] In their 20s, Bradley identified as third gender, as that was the current term to describe people outside of the gender binary. [4] In Queer Across Canada (1993), Bradley depicted how different regions of Canada use conflicting language to describe Bradley's gender identity and sexual orientation, becoming the first person to come out as queer on Canadian network TV. [15] [4]

Since 2015, Bradley has used they/them pronouns. [14]

Filmography

YearTitleCredit Listing
2014Godhead Executive Producer
2014 Two 4 One Executive Producer, Director, Writer, Editor
2014JackhammerAssociate Producer
2014'Til Death (Short) Producer
2013Floodplain (Short) Associate Producer
2012Stuck (Short)Executive Producer
2012Bardo Light (Short)Executive Producer
2009Freshman's Wharf (TV Mini-Series)Producer
2005What Remains Human (Short)Director, Writer
2004You Fake (Short)Director, Writer
2003Blindspot (Short)Director
2002The Chosen Family (Short)Director, Writer
2001 Last Wedding Location Production Assistant

Additional works

Awards and nominations

Bradley has received recognition for their work in the film industry in numerous film festivals. Their web series, Freshman's Wharf, received a Leo Award in 2011. [2] Bradley's short film, Pants on Fire, was featured at the Worldfest/Houston International Film Festival and received a Golden Remi Award for Short Film Directing. [2] Bradley has also been recognized at the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Austin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Reelings Festival, Chicago, and the Santa Barbara Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. [2]

Bradley's debut film Two 4 One has received numerous awards and nominations. Bradley was personally nominated for three Leo Awards for this film, including Best Motion Picture, Best Direction in a Motion Picture, and Best Screenwriting in a Motion Picture. [16] They were also nominated for two awards at the Vancouver International Film Festival. [16] Lead actor Gavin Crawford received the ACTRA Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor, and Gabrielle Rose won a Leo Award for Best Supporting Performance by a Female in a Motion Picture. [16]

Additionally, artistic retrospectives based on Bradley's work have been created in cities across Canada. [2] These retrospectives include Making Scenes (1999) and Out on Screen (1998), hosted respectively by Ottawa's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and Vancouver's Queer Film and Video Festival. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Laundry</span>

Black Laundry is a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) organization that uses direct action to oppose Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and advocate for social justice. The group made its first public appearance in 2001 after the second Intifada, where 250 members marched in the Tel Aviv Pride Day parade with the message 'No Pride in Occupation.'

Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.

<i>Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch</i> 2005 book by Dwight A. McBride

Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality is a book by Dwight A. McBride on ethno-relational mores in contemporary gay African America with a nod to black, feminist and queer cultural contexts "dedicated to integrating sexuality and race into black and queer studies."

<i>GLQ</i> (journal) Academic journal

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal based published by Duke University Press. It was co-founded by David M. Halperin and Carolyn Dinshaw in the early 1990s. In its mission, the journal seeks "to offer queer perspectives on all issues touching on sex and sexuality." It covers religion, science studies, politics, law, and literary studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Fung</span>

Richard Fung is a video artist, writer, public intellectual and theorist who currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and is openly gay.

Charles Steven Key, better known as Paul Morris, is the owner of Treasure Island Media, a San Francisco, California-based gay pornography studio that specializes in bareback pornography.

Queer pornography depicts performers with various gender identities and sexual orientations interacting and exploring genres of desire and pleasure in unique ways. These conveyed interactions distinctively seek to challenge the conventional modes of portraying and experiencing sexually explicit content. Scholar Ingrid Ryberg additionally includes two main objectives of queer pornography in her definition as "interrogating and troubling gender and sexual categories and aiming at sexual arousal."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Stryker</span> American professor, historian, author, and filmmaker

Susan O'Neal Stryker is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona, and is currently on leave while holding an appointment as Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College. Stryker serves on the Advisory Council of METI and the Advisory Board of the Digital Transgender Archive. Stryker, who is a transgender woman, is the author of several books about LGBT history and culture. She is a leading scholar of transgender history.

Amber L. Hollibaugh was an American writer, filmmaker, activist and organizer concerned with working class, lesbian and feminist politics, especially around sexuality. She was a former Executive Director of Queers for Economic Justice and was Senior Activist Fellow Emerita at the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Hollibaugh proudly identified as a "lesbian sex radical, ex-hooker, incest survivor, gypsy child, poor-white-trash, high femme dyke."

Transgender studies, also called trans studies or trans* studies, is an interdisciplinary field of academic research dedicated to the study of gender identity, gender expression, and gender embodiment, as well as to the study of various issues of relevance to transgender and gender variant populations. Interdisciplinary subfields of transgender studies include applied transgender studies, transgender history, transgender literature, transgender media studies, transgender anthropology and archaeology, transgender psychology, and transgender health. The research theories within transgender studies focus on cultural presentations, political movements, social organizations and the lived experience of various forms of gender nonconformity. The discipline emerged in the early 1990s in close connection to queer theory. Non-transgender-identified peoples are often also included under the "trans" umbrella for transgender studies, such as intersex people, crossdressers, drag artists, third gender individuals, and genderqueer people.

<i>Two 4 One</i> 2014 Canadian film

Two 4 One is a 2014 Canadian comedy-drama film that marks the debut of Victoria, British Columbia filmmaker Maureen Bradley. The film stars Gavin Crawford as Adam, a trans man who agrees to have a one-night stand with his ex-girlfriend Miriam during which he uses a mail order at-home pregnancy kit to artificially inseminate her with donated sperm. However, an accident during the encounter leaves both Adam and Miriam pregnant, forcing Adam, who has not yet completed the surgical phase of his gender transition, to confront the ways in which the pregnancy will influence his sense of gender identity.

TT Takemoto is an American artist and associate professor of visual studies and dean of Humanities & Sciences at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Takemoto's work explores issues of race and queer identity. They have presented work internationally, and received numerous grants for their work, notably from ART Matters, the James Irvine Foundation and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Their film Looking for Jiro received Best Experimental Film Jury Award at the Austin LGBT International Film Festival, and opened MIX 24: New York’s Queer Experimental Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claudia Morgado Escanilla</span> Chilean-Canadian filmmaker

Claudia Morgado Escanilla is a Latino-Canadian filmmaker, writer, script supervisor, producer and curator. She has worked on the festival circuit and commercially. Morgado was the script supervisor of film or television shows including The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), Hyena Road and Legends of Tomorrow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beverley Palesa Ditsie</span> South African activist

Beverley Palesa Ditsie is a South African lesbian activist, artist, and filmmaker. Ditsie is one of the founders of the gay rights organization Gay and Lesbian Organization of Witwatersrand.

Morty Diamond is a filmmaker, artist, performer, and writer from the United States who has worked alongside the LGBT community for over 14 years. Diamond has written and edited three books, which all focus on transgender topics, and has also made two films which explore LGBT subjects.

Kara Keeling is an American humanities academic. As of 2016 she is Associate Professor at the University of Southern California in the Critical Studies of Cinematic Arts and in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity.

Gwen Haworth is a Canadian transgender filmmaker, editor, social worker and instructor, known for her experimental documentaries She's a Boy I Knew (2007) and A Woman With a Past (2014). Haworth is also an advocate for transgender health issues and was chosen in 2014 as one of Vancouver's 12 Remarkable Women at a ceremony on March 8 for International Women's Day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TJ Cuthand</span> Canadian (Cree) filmmaker

TJ Cuthand, also credited as Theo Cuthand and Thirza Cuthand, is a filmmaker and performance artist, writer and curator of Plains Cree as well as Scottish and Irish descent. He is credited with coining the term Indigiqueer, for modern Indigenous LGBTQ people. In May 2022, he changed his name to TJ Cuthand and came out as a trans man.

Kathryn Bond Stockton is an American writer and academic. She works at the University of Utah, where she serves as the inaugural Dean of the School for Cultural and Social Transformation and a Distinguished Professor of English. Her primary research areas are "queer theory, theories of race and racialized gender, and twentieth-century literature and film."

References

  1. ↑ Bradley, Mo [@MaureenBradley] (19 April 2021). "I'm 54. I'd like the AstraZeneca vaccine, please! I am fully informed. Change the Provincial guidelines immediately, please. @PHSAofBC @adriandixI" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 19 April 2021 – via Twitter.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 "Maureen Bradley: Independent Canadian Filmmaker". www.maureenbradley.com. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "queer arts and literature magazine". plenitudemagazine.ca. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bradley, Maureen (2008-01-01). "Choosing the Ghetto". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 14 (1): 130–132. doi:10.1215/10642684-14-1-130. ISSN   1527-9375. S2CID   144603390.
  5. 1 2 3 "Man becomes pregnant in Calgary film fest movie". Calgary Sun. Archived from the original on 2015-09-12. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  6. 1 2 "Two 4 One and the accidental pregnancy | Daily Xtra". 29 September 2014. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  7. 1 2 Reid, Michael D. "Victoria filmmaker aims to transcend transgender cliché". Archived from the original on 2016-06-19. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Hladki, Janice (2010). Fierce: Women's Hot-Blooded Film/Video. Hamilton, Ontario: McMaster University. ISBN   9781926632049.
  9. 1 2 "About the Contributors". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 14 (1): 165–167. 2008-01-01. doi:10.1215/10642684-14-1-165. ISSN   1527-9375.
  10. ↑ Fraser, Dorothy June (June 29, 2013). "Doing it [Her]self: Maureen Bradley's film, media activism and new movie Two 4 One". Plenitude. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  11. 1 2 "VIFF 2014 BC Spotlight: 6 Questions with Maureen Bradley". VIFF. 6 September 2014. Retrieved 2015-10-08.
  12. ↑ "Two 4 One". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  13. ↑ "In the Press" . Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  14. 1 2 3 "Not Like That: Diary of a Butch-a-Phobe". Media Queer. Queer Media Database Canada-Québec. May 9, 2015. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  15. ↑ Bradley, Mo (2022-09-05), Queer Across Canada, 1993, excerpt , retrieved 2023-10-02
  16. 1 2 3 "IMDb - Maureen Bradley". IMDb. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.