HERITAGE FILM PROJECT
by EDUARDO MONTES-BRADLEY
Heritage Film Project, founded in 2008, specializes in documenting communities and the lives and works of distinguished individuals (Jay Y. Gillenwater), institutions (University of Virginia), artists (John Borden Evans), writers (Rita Dove), and scientists (John Herr, Phd).
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work-in-progress
June 17th, The American Bar Association presents "The Other Madisons”. Please, visit our blog for more information. Thank You!
June 20th, "The Other Madisons” screens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as part of the Official Selection at the Roxbury International Film Festival.
September 1st. The Library Company of Philadelphia presents “The Other Madisons”.
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Montes-Bradley has produced and directed over forty biographical portrayals of distinguished artists and intellectuals including Rita Dove, Jorge Luis Borges, Julian Bond, and Alice Parker.
Other relevant works are “Samba on Your Feet”, a unique approach to Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions through music, and the evolution of Carnival.
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“Che: Rise and Fall”, was released by National Geographic, and it’s been embraced by the critics as “one of the most relevant accounts of the life of the legendary Che Guevara”. On the same path of historical figures, he produced and directed “Monroe Hill”, an approach to the life of James Monroe in times of the French Revolution deserving of an award by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, and “Evita”, a one-hour in-depth portrayal of the woman and the myth behind Argentina’s influential first lady.
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The Other Madisons by Eduardo Montes-Bradley, documents the process by which an oral tradition preserves, with exquisite fidelity, an important social record, in spite of, or perhaps in response to, suppression or neglect by exclusion and racism. In this genealogical journey, Bettye Kearse traces her ancestry to Mandy, her family’s first African ancestor enslaved on American soil and who became the property of President James Madison's estate in Virginia, Montpelier.
In the presence of Nazi guards, Milton Feldman stood proud as an American Jew | Milton Feldman was born in 1924 to hard-working immigrants from Russia. His parents had a candy store in Brooklyn and he vividly remembers the social transformations that followed the Great Depression, a time in which the quiet Jewish neighborhood where he grew up, bared witness to the Nazi youth parading swastikas alongside the Stars and Stripes. By 1937, the echoes of Fascism in Europe were an open invitation for thousands to gather at Madison Square Garden where thousands of Hitler sympathizers cheered the speech of rightwing Nationalists.
A new documentary by filmmaker
Montes-Bradley tells the story
of children born to the Madisons
and their slaves in Virginia.
Alice Parker (b. 1925) is a distinguished composer, conductor, and teacher of choral music. In a career that spans some seventy years, Alice found early prominence as protégé of conductor Robert Shaw, with whom she collaborated as researcher and arranger of folk songs, hymns and spirituals for the Robert Shaw Chorale. Alice’s compositional reach is extensive and inclusive, from children’s songs and church hymns to operas and large concert works. In “Alice: At Home with Alice Parker”, the composer collaborates with Eduardo Montes-Bradley in an intimate portrayal of her life that illuminates her artistic achievements and her extraordinary kindness and passion for life.Renowned within the choral music community, Alice Parker stands tall as a modern pioneer in expanding the audience for choral music in all its “high” and “low” forms. This achievement was especially significant in a time before the now-ubiquitous recording and distribution technologies. Among her contemporaries, Alice Parker is distinctive for her convictions about the fundamental value of singing for every individual and of the capacity of choral singing to create social bonds that touch on the spiritual and afford intimations of the divine.
WHITE: A Season in the Life of John Borden Evans - John works year-round in his atelier in North Garden, Va. where we discussed for the first time the idea of a documentary film about his work. The initial concept was to expose his work from the perspective of four seasons and we started production last autumn. However, the following winter I knew that the film was going to be all about cold, snow, isolation and the life on the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. “White” is about an artist, and a way of life; is about a farm in a place in Virginia; is about food and God, is about love, water, trees, and the relentless relationship between time and oneself. Moreover, “White” is a film about an artist named John Borden Evans.
1165 Owensville Road
Charlottesville, Virginia 22901
