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THE JOURNAL
A DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER'S BLOG
NEW YORK CHARLOTTESVILLE VALENCIA
The Journal — A Documentary Filmmaker’s Blog by Eduardo Montes-Bradley
THE GUASTAVINO EFFECT
Genius at Work on Ellis Island | For nearly fifty years I've managed to stay away from two of New York’s famous landmarks: the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I'm not attracted to seeing a place simply because one is supposed to see it. I'm more interested in scouting a location, when the visit has a purpose and the building has something I need to understand. This time I had a purpose: Rafael Guastavino.
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Going Vertical at St. John the Divine
I went back to St. John the Divine, this time to take the Vertical Tour. Our guide was a parishioner originally from the German-speaking part of Switzerland whose name, regrettably, I can't remember. She was knowledgeable, patient, and seemingly quite at home leading a dozen strangers up the narrow spiral staircases and into the upper reaches of one of New York’s most extraordinary landmarks.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 283 min read
A New Vision of Spain
Vision of Spain appears documentary, but every representation of a nation is also an invention, and that makes it particularly interesting to me. Sorolla chose which regions would stand for Spain, which costumes would identify them, which ceremonies mattered, which occupations deserved monumental treatment and which fragments of everyday life could carry the weight of national identity.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 276 min read
The Sound of the Lost Republic
We tend to think of pre-revolutionary Cuba through its popular music. Son, rumba, mambo, bolero, jazz: these have become inseparable from our historical imagination of the city. But another Cuba sounded at the same time, and its musical geography was remarkably international.
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Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 274 min read
A Guastavino Walk Above and Below
Yesterday’s walk was conceived as a journey beneath Rafael Guastavino’s domes and vaulted ceilings, beginning at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, at Fifth Avenue and 55th Street, continuing through Grand Central Terminal, and finally descending into the ghostly loop beneath Lower Manhattan, where trains still pass through the abandoned City Hall station.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 271 min read
Return to St. John the Divine
A minimal photo essay from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, tracing Rafael Guastavino's Valencian timbrel vaults from La Lonja to nearly 1,000 American buildings.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 252 min read
Peoria, of All Places
The Piccirilli Factor screens Oct 8, 2026, at the Peoria Riverfront Museum — the town where Lincoln's 1854 speech began the road to the memorial the Piccirilli brothers carved.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 232 min read
How America Learned to Hear Spain: Joaquín Rodrigo and the New World Imagination
How Joaquín Rodrigo shaped America’s image of Spain, from the Concierto de Aranjuez to Miles Davis, and transformed a Valencian voice into a transatlantic legacy.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 159 min read
Into the Whirlpool of History: How a Midnight Collaboration in Massa Became a Criticism of War
A Short Film: While visiting Massa for the premiere of my feature film, The Piccirilli Factor, I was invited to walk through the historic air-raid refuge (rifugio antiaereo) near Piazza Martana. Nestled deep below the Castello Malaspina, the shelter is a massive, hand-hewn empty space. Walking through it, I felt completely sucked into an eddy—a whirlpool of history.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 72 min read
The Piccirilli Factor Returns Home: A European Premiere in Massa
The Piccirilli Factor celebrates its European premiere in Massa, Italy, as the documentary begins an international tour across museums and cultural institutions.
Heritage Film Project
Aug 63 min read
The Curious Case of the Italian Missing Roadkill
Why are there so few wild animals—and almost no roadkill—in Italy? A day driving through Tuscany and Liguria becomes a humorous field expedition into Europe’s carefully curated landscape, ending with an unexpected discovery: the country’s most successful “mammal” is the Panda.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Aug 32 min read
Sorolla's Return Journey: From New York to Valencia
More than 200 works by Joaquín Sorolla will travel from New York’s Hispanic Society to Valencia. Their return reveals the cultural relationship between the two cities and introduces Valencians in New York, a documentary exploring the influence of Sorolla, Guastavino, Blasco Ibáñez and Penella on New York.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Jul 294 min read
Guastavino and the Making of Monumental New York
Discover how Valencian architect Rafael Guastavino and his son transformed New York through revolutionary tile vaults found in Grand Central Terminal the City Hall subway station St. John the Divine and many other landmarks.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Jul 269 min read
Universo Montes-Bradley: Conversaciones con Julia Montesoro
Ya está disponible la primera temporada de Universo Montes-Bradley: Conversaciones con Julia Montesoro
Heritage Film Project
Jul 264 min read
The Fish, the Angel, and the Price of Sacrifice: Blasco Ibáñez and Sorolla
From a rainy Boston cemetery where Chadwick turned a Daniel Chester French sculpture into a symphony, Eduardo Montes-Bradley reflects on translation between the arts — and on Blasco Ibáñez and Sorolla, two friends from Valencia whose page and canvas gave us the true price of fish.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Jul 253 min read
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez: The Valencian Who Swept New York Off Its Feet
Before Valentino and before Garbo, a writer made in Valencia wrote the stories that launched them. Eduardo Montes-Bradley on Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867–1928) — the man behind The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, friend of Sorolla and Benlliure, who conquered New York in 1919 and helped invent modern mass-media fame.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Jul 246 min read
Ignacio Zuloaga: The Other Face of the Spanish Modernist Coin
Writing from Valencia, Eduardo Montes-Bradley finds Zuloaga's canvases in the Museo de Bellas Artes and, from Sorolla's dark twin to the red and black roosters of El gallo negro, traces the two Spains — from the crack of 1898 to the Civil War songs of Republican refugees in Buenos Aires.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Jul 244 min read
The Beginnings of Modernity in Valencia
Writing from Valencia, Eduardo Montes-Bradley traces the beginnings of modernity in Valencian art — from Francisco Domingo Marqués to Joaquín Sorolla's international triumph — the silver age that shaped Spanish painting into the twentieth century.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Jul 222 min read
Lighter Than Air: A Lecture in Barcelona
On July 21, 2026, Eduardo Montes-Bradley delivers a lecture at the Consulate General of Argentina in Barcelona marking the 110th anniversary of the first crossing of the Andes by hydrogen balloon, achieved in 1916 by Eduardo Bradley and Ángel María Zuloaga.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Jul 192 min read
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