Katherine Brooks

Last updated
Katherine Brooks
KatherineBrooksArticle.jpg
Brooks in 2010
Born
Sara Katherine Hill

(1976-03-15) March 15, 1976 (age 48)
Covington, Louisiana, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Writer, film director
Website http://www.katherinebrooks.com

Katherine Brooks (born March 15, 1976) is an American film writer and director. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America, a Jury Member for Samsung Fresh-Films 2007 (the largest teen filmmaking program in the USA), and the recipient of the LACE Award for Arts and Entertainment. In 2011, she was named one of the "Amazing Gay Women in Showbiz" by POWER UP. [1]

Contents

Early life

At the age of 16, Brooks ran away from her small town home in Louisiana to pursue a career in television and film. She slept in her car in the parking lot of a Hollywood motel. [2]

Career

Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson of The Newlyweds TheNewlyweds.jpg
Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson of The Newlyweds

Brooks has directed 21 television shows, as well as written and directed 10 films. Her film and television credits include three seasons of the Emmy Award-winning show The Osbournes , Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica , and MTV's groundbreaking The Real World . While associated with MTV, she helmed several of the network's reality series, including There and Back , Meet the Barkers and The Simple Life . [3]

Brooks moved into directing feature films after making her short films Finding Kate and Dear Emily.

Brooks' first feature film, Loving Annabelle , starred Erin Kelly, Diane Gaidry, and Kevin McCarthy. It debuted at the prestigious Cinequest Film Festival in 2006. The film won the Audience Award and Best Actress Award at Outfest. [4] [5] In addition, Loving Annabelle won Best Feature Film at the Melbourne Film Festival (2006), Barcelona Film Festival (2006), Atlanta Film Festival (2006), and the Jury Award at Paris Cinema Festival (2006). [6] [7]

Brooks wrote her second feature, the indie thriller Waking Madison , in New Orleans, a film which starred Sarah Roemer (Disturbia), Elisabeth Shue, Will Patton, Frances Conroy, and Taryn Manning. Her documentary Face 2 Face appeared on Netflix in 2013. She served as a Field Producer on National Geographic Presents: Impact with Gal Gadot, produced by Gal Gadot.

Her most recent work is Lost in Time (2018), starring Jill Hennessy.

Personal life

Brooks is a spokesperson for PETA and a practicing Buddhist.[ citation needed ] Brooks lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.[ citation needed ] Brooks is a lesbian. [8]

Films

Finding Kate

In 2004, Erin Kelly and Brooks made an experimental short film called Finding Kate. The short film was part of a series called Virgin Memoirs, a compilation that narrated the "first-time" experiences of women.[ citation needed ]

A young Kelly plays 17-year-old Kate at a wedding reception. When she sees Victoria (Jessica Lancaster), she quickly drops her boyfriend's hand to go and talk to her cousin. The two flirt and end up in the pool together, their eyes dancing until they begin to kiss.[ citation needed ]

Dear Emily

Sara is going to visit her high school friend Emily. On her journey there, she recalls her last experience with her teenage crush, remembering a letter she wrote to Emily—a letter confessing her love for her. Following a painful flashback to Emily's mocking of Sara, after she reads the note, she decides to keep on driving to her destination. Dear Emily was funded by EVEO.com after Brooks won a pitch contest for her feature film, Loving Annabelle. Despite being given only 6 weeks from conception to completion, and just $1,000 to make it, the film, to date, has made back over 500% of its profit.[ citation needed ]

Loving Annabelle

Left to right: Gaidry, Kelly, and Brooks on the set of Loving Annabelle, 2006 Talkwiththestars.jpg
Left to right: Gaidry, Kelly, and Brooks on the set of Loving Annabelle, 2006

Loving Annabelle is the controversial story of a Catholic boarding school teacher, Simone Bradley (Diane Gaidry), who has an affair with her female student, Annabelle (Erin Kelly).

The film was summed up by Variety magazine as a "Guilty Pleasure", and has won numerous awards on the festival circuit, including the Outfest Award for Best Actress, and the Outfest Award for the Audience Choice. [9] The film sat in the top five list of videos rented by lesbians according to Wolfe Video's website. [10] It is recommended by 100% of readers on scene-OUT.com and is ranked on the bestseller's list in its category on Amazon. [11]

Waking Madison

Sarah Roemer in Waking Madison, 2010 SarahRoemerWakingMadison.jpg
Sarah Roemer in Waking Madison, 2010

Waking Madison is the story of a young woman's battle with mental illness. [12] [13]

Madison Walker (Sarah Roemer) is suffering from dissociative identity disorder or multiple personality disorder. Living in New Orleans and working as a sex phone operator, Madison is doing everything she can to lead a normal life.

When a series of events leaves Madison suicidal and desperate, she locks herself away in her apartment for 30 days. Using a video camera to document herself like a visual journal, Madison clearly states in her first entry that if she does not have the answers to her questions and feels more at people with her life on the 30th day, she will kill herself.

With the help of Doctor Elizabeth Barnes (Elisabeth Shue), Madison begins to slowly piece her life together. Determined to find a cure for herself, Madison secludes herself in her apartment for 30 days and embarks on a journey to discover: what is real. The climactic twist at the end leaves audiences with the very same question. Brooks stated:

I'm intrigued by the challenge of telling a story from the perspective of a character suffering from multiple personality disorder. Visually, Madison will take on an innovative style of mixing narrative with documentary-realism.

As part of research for the topic, Brooks locked herself up for 30 days and underwent the same process as the character Madison. This helped Brooks to visually re-create her experiences from the trial, bringing the character and the story more to life. Waking Madison was shot on location in New Orleans in Winter 2007. [14]

Face 2 Face

Katherine shooting Face 2 Face, 2011 KatbrooksF2F.jpg
Katherine shooting Face 2 Face, 2011

Brooks completed a documentary with the director doing a three-month summer trip around the country, meeting 50 of her Facebook friends who said yes when she posed the question as her status, "Who would like to spend a day with me and I'll come visit you". The idea was born after the director had surgery, and despite having 4700 friends on Facebook, stated that she felt alone. [15]

Filmography

Features

Short films

Television

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisabeth Shue</span> American actress (born 1963)

Elisabeth Shue is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the films The Karate Kid (1984), Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Cocktail (1988), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Soapdish (1991), The Saint (1997), Hollow Man (2000), Piranha 3D (2010), Battle of the Sexes (2017), Death Wish (2018) and Greyhound (2020). For her performance in Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Shue was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress as well as a BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Award.

Mary Katherine Gallagher is a fictional character invented and portrayed by Saturday Night Live cast member Molly Shannon from 1995 to 2001. She was considered the first breakout character from the new 1995 cast and a significant marker of the increased influence of women writers on the show in the 1990s. Shannon portrayed the character in a 1999 film, Superstar, and she also reprised the role when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 2007. Shannon first created an early version of the character when she was in school at NYU, during a comedy show directed by Madeleine Olnek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenni Olson</span> American filmmaker

Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.

Sheela Lambert (1956-2024), a native and lifelong resident of New York City, was an American bisexual activist and writer.

Nancy Kates is an independent filmmaker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She directed Regarding Susan Sontag, a feature documentary about the late essayist, novelist, director and activist. Through archival footage, interviews, still photographs and images from popular culture, the film reflects the boldness of Sontag’s work and the cultural importance of her thought, and received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Sundance Documentary Film Program.

<i>Loving Annabelle</i> 2006 film by Katherine Brooks

Loving Annabelle is a 2006 American romantic drama film written and directed by Katherine Brooks. Inspired by the 1931 German film Mädchen in Uniform, it tells the story of a boarding school student who falls in love with her teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Roemer</span> American actress (born 1984)

Sarah Christine Roemer is an American actress. One of her best-known roles was a supporting character in Disturbia, and she has also starred in a number of films including Asylum, Hachi: A Dog's Tale, Fired Up!, Waking Madison, and The Con Artist, as well as the television series The Event and Chosen.

<i>Girl Play</i> 2004 film by Lee Friedlander

Girl Play is an independent film produced in 2004 by Gina G. Goff and Laura A. Kellam of Goff-Kellam Productions. The feature film was directed by Lee Friedlander. The film premiered at Outfest in 2004, and had a limited theatrical release in 2005.

<i>Waking Madison</i> 2011 American film

Waking Madison is a 2011 American independent drama film written and directed by Katherine Brooks and starring Sarah Roemer and Elisabeth Shue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annabelle Wallis</span> British actress (born 1984)

Annabelle Wallis is an English actress. She is known for her roles as Jane Seymour in Showtime's period drama The Tudors (2009–2010), Grace Burgess in the BBC drama Peaky Blinders (2013–2019), Mia Form in the supernatural horror film Annabelle (2014), Jenny Halsey in the supernatural adventure film The Mummy (2017), Sandra in Silent Night (2021) and Madison Mitchell in the horror film Malignant (2021).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erin Kelly (actress)</span> American actress

Erin Kelly is an American film, theater and television actress, best known for her role as Annabelle Tillman in Katherine Brooks' 2006 film Loving Annabelle.

Tiffany Lynn Rowe, also known professionally as Tiffany Lynn, is an American model and actress, initially best known as the partner and later fiancée of singer-songwriter Ashley Parker Angel in the reality series There and Back.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Gaidry</span> American actress (1964–2019)

Diane Adair Gaidry was an American film and theatre actress.

<i>Bloomington</i> (film) 2010 American film

Bloomington is a 2010 coming-of-age drama film about a former child actress attending college in search of independence and who ends up becoming romantically involved with a professor, played by Allison McAtee. Their relationship thrives until an opportunity to return to acting forces them to make life-altering decisions.

Margaret Elizabeth Ellison is an American film producer, entrepreneur, and daughter of multibillionaire Larry Ellison. She is the founder of Annapurna Pictures, established in 2011. She produced the films Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Her (2013), American Hustle (2013), and Phantom Thread (2017), all of which have earned her Oscar nominations. In 2014, Ellison was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. She also received a Tony Award for Best Musical as a producer for the musical A Strange Loop.

Laura Muscardin is an Italian film director and screenwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Young</span> American film producer and photographer (born 1969)

Jennifer Young is an American film producer and photographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desiree Akhavan</span> American film director, producer, screenwriter and actress

Desiree Akhavan (Persian: دزیره اخوان, born December 27, 1984) is an American filmmaker, writer and actress. She is best known for her 2014 feature film debut Appropriate Behavior, and her 2018 film The Miseducation of Cameron Post. She appeared in the found footage horror film Creep 2.

<i>The House on Pine Street</i> 2015 American film

The House on Pine Street is a 2015 independent psychological drama-horror film written by Aaron Keeling, Austin Keeling, and Natalie Jones, and directed by Aaron Keeling and Austin Keeling. The project was partially funded through a Kickstarter campaign. Principal photography took place over 19 days in the spring of 2014.

<i>Wild Nights with Emily</i> 2018 American film

Wild Nights with Emily is a 2018 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Madeleine Olnek. It stars Molly Shannon as Emily Dickinson, as well as Amy Seimetz, Susan Ziegler, Brett Gelman, Jackie Monahan, Kevin Seal, Dana Melanie, Sasha Frolova, Lisa Haas and Stella Chesnut. The film is based on the actual events of Emily Dickinson's life, including her process as a writer, her attempts to get published, and her lifelong romantic relationship with another woman.

References

  1. ↑ Jarchow, Boo (November 8, 2011). "Power Up's Amazing Gay Women and Men In Showbiz Awards: Photos". Pride .
  2. ↑ "Imdb". IMDb .
  3. ↑ "Katherine Brooks" Retrieved 8 June 2015
  4. ↑ "Metroactive Movies | Cinequest Briefs". www.metroactive.com. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  5. ↑ "Outfest.org". Archived from the original on 2013-09-21. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
  6. ↑ "Paris Cinema Festival (2006)". IMDb. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  7. ↑ "Barcelona International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (2006)". IMDb. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  8. ↑ "Twitter".
  9. ↑ Harvey, Dennis (2006-04-03). "Loving Annabelle Movie Review". Variety.
  10. ↑ Wolfevideo.com Archived 2008-12-16 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ↑ "Scene-out.com". Archived from the original on 2006-05-17. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
  12. ↑ Dave McNary (2007-10-16). "Roemer, Shue join 'Madison'". Variety . Retrieved 2008-10-11.
  13. ↑ Monika Bartyzel (2007-11-05). "Frances Conroy and Will Patton Will Also Be 'Waking Madison'". Cinematical. Archived from the original on 2008-01-12. Retrieved 2008-10-11.
  14. ↑ Staff, AfterEllen com (2008-07-29). "Interview With Katherine Brooks". AfterEllen. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
  15. ↑ Face2facemovie.com
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.