Garrett Bradley (filmmaker) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Garrett Bradley
Born	1986 (age 38–39) New York City, U.S.
Education	Smith College, UCLA
Occupation	Filmmaker
Years active	2014–present
Notable work	Alone; America; Time
Parent(s)	Peter Bradley Suzanne McClelland
Awards	American Academy of Arts and Letters: Art, Arts and Letters Awards (2022); Sundance Film Festival; Best Director, US Documentary Competition (2020); Prix de Rome (2019); Creative Capital Grantee (2019)

Garrett Bradley (born 1986) is an American filmmaker. She directs short films, full-length movies, documentaries, and TV shows. Bradley is known for mixing different film styles. She explores the important meaning of everyday moments in people's lives.

Early Life and Education

Garrett Bradley was born in New York City in 1986. Her parents, Suzanne McClelland and Peter Bradley, were artists. They divorced when she was two years old.

When she was sixteen, Bradley made her first film. She interviewed her parents about art and their divorce. Bradley felt this film let her ask questions she couldn't ask without a camera. She called the film Be-Bop Fidelity. It won an award at her high school's film festival.

Bradley studied religion at Smith College and graduated in 2007. Later, she earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing at UCLA in 2012. She also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Before becoming a filmmaker, Bradley worked as a concert photographer for Central Park's SummerStage.

Career Highlights

Her first full-length film, Below Dreams, came out in 2014. It showed the lives of three people moving from north to south. They were looking for a new start. Critics noticed Bradley's unique filmmaking style. One reviewer called it "a slow-burn beauty." Bradley found most of her actors for Below Dreams through Craigslist. Many of these people later appeared in her other films.

In 2017, Bradley helped start Creative Council. This was an after-school program for art students in New Orleans. It helped public high school students create strong art portfolios. The New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC) supported this program.

Notable Film Projects

Alone (2017)

Bradley's 13-minute documentary Alone came out in 2017. Like her later film Time, it looks at how people are affected by being in prison. Bradley describes it from a "Black southern, feminist perspective." The short film features Aloné Watts, a young woman whose boyfriend is in prison. The film shows Watts' daily life as she thinks about her future. Fox Rich, who is the main person in Time, also appears in Alone.

Alone first showed at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It won the Short Form Jury Award for nonfiction there. The New York Times OpDocs released it. In 2021, Alone was part of an art show called Grief and Grievance.

America (2019)

Bradley's 2019 project, America, is both a film and an art installation. It has two different versions. America was first shown at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Then it was part of Bradley's first traveling art show, Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody. This show went to several museums, including The Momentary and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

The short film version of America was highly praised. A film critic called it the "most original film" at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It was nominated for an Independent Documentary Award. In 2019, America made history for a short film. It played for a week at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. This event also included other films that inspired Bradley.

Time (2020)

In 2020, Bradley released her first full-length documentary, Time. This film was nominated for over 57 awards and won twenty. It received an Academy Award nomination. It also won a 2020 Peabody Award. Bradley won Best Director in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Time was listed in Time Magazine’s “25 Defining Works of the Black Renaissance.” It was also on Barack Obama’s list of favorite films for 2020.

Other Works

In 2021, Netflix released Naomi Osaka. This is a three-part miniseries directed by Bradley. The series follows tennis star Naomi Osaka for two years during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Filming happened in America, Japan, Haiti, and Australia. Bradley gave Osaka a camcorder to film some of her own footage for the series. It shows the life of a professional athlete dealing with being a global star.

In 2022, Bradley had her first show with Lisson Gallery. Her short film Safe is the second in a series that includes AKA. These films explore the inner and outer lives of women. Also in 2022, Bradley worked with artist Arthur Jafa. They created a split-screen film installation called a Negro, a Lim-o. This piece used old materials, conversations, and new footage.

Solo Exhibitions

2023

• AKA, COMA, Sydney, Australia

2022

• Garrett Bradley: Safe, Lisson Gallery, London, UK
• Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
• Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody, August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA
• Projects 111: Garrett Bradley, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

2021

• Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody, The Momentary, Bentonville, AR

2019

• Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX
• Garrett Bradley's America: A Journey Through Race and Time, BAM Rose Cinemas, New York, NY

Group Exhibitions

2022

• Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
• 2022 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
• Toni Morrison's Back Book, David Zwirner, New York, NY

2021

• Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, New Museum, New York, NY
• Family: Visions of a Shared Humanity, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

2020

• Cinque Monstre 2020: Convergence, American Academy of Rome, Rome, Italy

2019

• Shirin Neshat + Garrett Bradley, The Broad @ Array, Los Angeles, CA
• Bodies of Knowledge, New Orleans Museum of Art. New Orleans, LA
• Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Filmography

Film and television