Eduardo Montes-Bradley

Eduardo Montes-Bradley
Portrait, 2010
Born	July 9, 1960 (1960-07-09) (age 51) Argentina
Pen name	Carlos María Ocantos, Diana Hunter, Rita Clavel, Ma. Laura del Río, Mimí Derba, Emma Padilla, Cándida Beltrán, Lupe Vélez, Ana Lobos.
Occupation	Writer, Filmmaker, Journalist
Nationality	USA
Spouse(s)	Soledad Liendo
Children	Thomas Benjamin, William
Relative(s)	Ricardo Ernesto Montes i Bradley
www.heritagefilmproject.com

Eduardo Montes-Bradley is an American writer-filmmaker^[1][2] born July 9, 1960. He has produced, directed, and written biographical film portraits on Latin American writers, composers, artists, intellectuals, World War II veterans, and Holocaust survivors. His documentary Samba On Your Feet, a study on the origins of Samba traditions in Brazil, gained the recognition of African American Studies departments in campuses across the US.^[3][4][5] “Calzada”, biography on a Cuban-American artist, and “Waissman” portrait of a Jewish Argentine artist, aired on PBS’s affiliate WPBT Channel 2, South Florida, and the same are frequently screened to college audiences throughout.^[6] Montes-Bradley was awarded a Silver Condor in 2002 for his documentary film Tells of the Helmsman.^[7] As a writer, Montes-Bradley has authored biographical research-essays on Julio Cortázar, Osvaldo Soriano, Jorge Luis Borges,^[8] Carlos Maria Ocantos,^[9] and Ernest Hemingway, as well as numerous articles for newspapers and magazines.^[10]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Life In America 3 Published work 3.1 Filmography 3.2 The great pretender 3.3 Music Videos 3.4 Bibliography 3.4.1 Books 3.4.2 Journalism 3.5 Appearances in other documentaries 3.5.1 As public Speaker/Panelist 4 Memberships 5 Notes 6 References

Early life

Montes-Bradley was born in Córdoba, Argentina the second of two children to Nelson Montes-Bradley, founder of Discos Qualiton and Sara Kaplan, a piano teacher born into a family of secular Jewish immigrants from Poland and Bessarabia. The family name Montes-Bradley is the result of the union of two ancestors in 1893: Juan A. Montes Ziegler of Galician and German descent, and Elvira Bradley, descendant of Thomas Osgood Bradley of Haverhill, Massachusetts. In 1961 the family relocated to Rosario, 250 miles east of Córdoba and the second largest city in Argentina. By 1965 they are living in Buenos Aires. The cultural ambiance in the capital city and the relationship of the family with the arts were crucial during his formative years. He attended public school, was brought up agnostic and atheist in a progressive, predominantly left-wing radical environment. In 1973 Montes-Bradley enters High School at the Colegio Nacional Avellaneda. May 25, 1973, marked the end a long period of military rule. General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse steps down as president and Héctor José Cámpora is elected on a Peronist ballot. Shortly after Héctor Campora's inauguration, former president and founder of the Peronist Party, General Juan Domingo Perón returned from exile in Madrid where he spent eighteen years under the protection of Generalisimo Francisco Franco.^[11] On September 11, 1973 Salvador Allende is overthrown in a bloody military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet in neighboring Chile. It was a time of profound political turmoil. Montes-Bradley became involved as a student in political activism. The deaths of Pablo Picasso, Pablo Casals, Pablo Neruda and Víctor Jara, all of which also occurred in 1973, had a profound impact in an entire generation. Montes-Bradley will frequently recall 1973 as turning point: "Not because of anything that I might have believed on then, which I most certainly don´t believe in now, convictions come and go; but because of the extraordinary experience of living in a home full of music and poetry within the boundaries of a country at the brink Civil War." Three years later, General Jorge Rafael Videla ousted General Peron's third wife and his widow inaugurating a new era of terror which resulted in the death of thousands, thousands more joining the ranks of the desaparecidos and thousands forced into exile.

Life In America

Shortly after the military coup of 1976 -which overthrew the reckless government of Isabel Perón - Montes-Bradley migrated to the United States taking up residence in New York City[12]. In the late seventies he worked as a correspondent for The Hollywood Reporter and El Heraldo del Cine, a Buenos Aires based trade publications in catering the film industry. His first contribution to film can be traced to Margareta Vinterheden's Man maste ju leva, Sweden, 1978. During the same period (late seventies - early eighties) Montes-Bradley worked as editor and assistant editor in a handful of documentaries focusing on Central America: The Nicaraguan and Salvadorean civil wars. In 1984, after the fallout of his first marriage, Montes-Bradley moved to California as publisher/editor of The Entertainment Herald, a bilingual trade magazine on film. The Entertainment Herald was financially supported with advertising from independent production and distribution companies, mostly founding members of the recently founded American Film Marketing Association (AFMA). Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, owners of Cannon Films, were amongst the largest contributors to The Entertainment Herald which finally ceased to exist two years after its foundation. By 1986, EM-B was working as a Director of International Sales for Filmtrust Motion Pictures, a production and distribution company based in Los Angeles, California. Filmtrust was owned by producers Marco Colombo and Christian Halsey-Solomon. In 1989 Montes-Bradley teamed-up with Spanish producer Javier Gracia to write, produce, and direct Double Obsession, a straight-to-video thriller released worldwide by Columbia Tri-Star. In 1995 Montes-Bradley married Argentine actress Sandra Ballesteros, leading-lady in The Kid Napping, E-MB's third and last known fiction flick. Montes-Bradley has produced written and directed over forty biographical documentaries, many under pseudonym inspired on fictitious characters such as Diana Hunter, the blind director-lady who "one day went deep into to the forest and was forever lost" or Rita Clavel. The actual number of pen names used by Montes-Bradley is uncertain, although a constant in his work as a filmmaker and a writer. Eduardo Montes-Bradley is currently residing in Florida. He's married to producer Soledad Liendo, they have two children.

Docs are safer than fiction, the chances I'll end up married to the lead-actress are very slim considering most of my subjects on my documentaries are either dead or about to join St. Peter.

—EM-B, "On Marriage and Film", Toulouse, 2005.

Published work

Filmography

1. Baragiola The Heritage Film Project, 2011^[13]. First on a series of On Campus productions at U.Va. by the Heritage Film Project. The film is a biographical sketch on Raúl Baragiola, Alice and Guy Wilson Professor of Engineering Physics and Materials Science. The film was shot on location in Charlottesville, VA. You Tube
2. Waissman The Heritage Film Project, 2010. Produced by Soledad Liendo. Documentary based on the life and works of Argentine contemporary artist Andrés Waissman, from his early days in the late Fifties to the present day in Buenos Aires. "Waissman" premiered on November 23, 2010 on WPBT Channel 2 (PBS). 30 minutes. 16:9 HD ^[14][15][16]
3. Calzada, The Heritage Film Project, 2010. . Produced by Soledad Liendo^[17]. Documentary on the life and works of Cuban-American artist Humberto Calzada. Theatrical Premier took place on January 7, 2010 at the Tower Theatre, Miami; TV premier on January 12, 2010 WPBT Channel 2 (PBS). Featuring Humberto Calzada, his early life in Havana, Cuba before the Cuban Revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, the first years in exile in Miami, and details on his current life as a highly regarded visual artist in the Caribbean. Original Music by Gerardo Aguillón (violin) and José Angel Navarro (guitar). 30 min. 16:9 HD ^[18][19]Your Tube exhibit.
4. Low Blows: La Raulito, (Original title: "La Raulito: Golpes bajos"). Argentina. 2009. Producer. Documentary on La Raulito, historical character, fan-mascot of Boca Juniors, popular and renowned soccer team of Argentina. First time director Emiliano Serra follows La Raulito during the last days of her life. Screened at Mar del Plata International Film Festival, December, 2009. Latin American Selection.^[20]
5. Evita (The Documentary), Writer, Producer, Director, Editor. Patagonia Film Group, USA, 2007. Documentary on Eva Duarte, former First Lady of Argentina. Evita, illegitimate child without social or economic standing, was determined to make it big in the world of entertainment. Her love affair with a rising political star (Juan Domingo Perón) transformed her into a vital part of Perón's plans to seduce a nation. The charming Evita became a skilled public speaker that fitted perfectly with politics in Argentina. Just imagine Marilyn Monroe with the charisma of Princess Diana, elevated by Joseph Goebbels´s propaganda machine as the indisputable Spiritual Leader of the Nation. The documentary appears to be fair, perhaps the first biography on the subject that strives to be balanced. "Evita" was screened at the Virginia Film Festival, in Charlottesville, on November 4, 2011.^[21][22]
6. Deira, EMB Entertainment, 2007. Deira, a biographical documentary on renowned artist Ernesto Deira. Screened during the first retrospective of Deira's work at the National Art Gallery, MNBA (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes), commemorating twenty years of his death. The film includes 8 mm footage captured by Deira during his visit to Belgium on occasion of a first major exhibition of his work. Deira also features interviews with Olga Galperin and Luis Felipe Noé amongst others.
7. Che: Rise & Fall, (Spanish w/English Subtitles). Witter, producer, director, editor. Patagonia Film Group, USA, 2006. US released, Nov. 2008 through Westlake Entertainment. CHE: Rise and Fall, follows on the trials and tribulations of Ernesto Guevara in the words of old friends and comrades-in-arms. The film unveils a different Che Guevara, not so divine as the one often portrayed. Marcelo Schapces shot the bulk of this film in Cuba for his own documentary: Che, a man of this world (1998). The purpose of Schapces at the time was to document the moment in which the remains of Che Guevara were being airlifted from Vallegrande, a one horse town in Bolivia, thirty years after his execution, to be flow to Santa Clara, Cuba, his final resting place. The film includes the likeness and words of Dr. Alberto Granados, Che's motorcycle companion and three surviving members of Guevara's Iron Guard. The film is divided in three four main chapters: Infancy, Cuba, Congo and Bolivia.
8. El gran simulador (The Great Pretender), (Spanish). Writer, Producer, Director, Editor. Verbum, Argentina, 2006. Released in Uruguay as "No a los papelones". El gran simulador begins with Eduardo Montes-Bradley in a quest to find Nahuel Maciel, a man who fifteen years before fooled everyone pretending to be a Native American from the Mapuche Nation in Patagonia. Disguised as the chief Nahuel sold interviews to Gabriel García Márquez, Umberto Ecco, Mario Vargas Llosa and more to El Cronista Comercial, a major newspaper in Argentina. The literary sham went even farther when Nahuel published a book with a bogus interview to the Colombian Nobel Prize of Literature preceded by a foreword by Uruguayan legend Eduardo Galeano. Eduardo Montes-Bradley finds Nahuel in Gualeguaychú, some 300 miles from Buenos Aires working close to the leadership of a group of environmentalists battling a paper-mill in the Argentina-Uruguay border. The film is witty, provocative and politically incorrect in all possible ways. El gran simulador was banned from theaters in Argentina for its politics (only to be shown at BAFICI, the Independent Film Festival of Buenos Aires and later released on DVD) and it was effectively released in Uruguay (across the border) with good B.O. results.^[23][24]
9. Tango Steps, Original version in Spanish with dubbed tracks available in English, Japanese, Italian, German, Chinese, Portuguese, French. Producer. 33 minutes. Patagonia Film Group, 2006. USA, 2006. Instructional video on basic tango steps. Includes graphics.
10. Samba On Your Feet, Original version in Portuguese, Available with English subtitles. Producer, Director, Editor. Patagonia Film Group, 2005. Documentary exploring the behind the scenes of Samba and Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The documentary reveals the clash that gave birth to Samba and a new cultural tradition in South America. Narrated by Haroldo Costa (historian-actor-writer). Costa explains how African slaves' beliefs, mixed with Spanish Catholic traditions and Native influences crafted a remarkable fusion. Multiple use of archival material. The film includes interviews with veteran samba performer Xango da Mangueira who recalls the early days of Carnival when he and his fellow performers sang and danced in the streets and were treated like vagrants, harassed and arrested by the police. Mae Helena D'Oxosse, a priestess in the umbanda tradition, incorporates samba in her religious practices and carries on a tradition among her working-class followers that is five hundred years old. Samba On Your Feet has been selected to participate at the Toulouse Latin American Film Festival 2008, at the Rio Film Festiva 2006, Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (BAFICI) 2007 and Toronto Latino Film Festival.^[25][26]
11. From Frankfurt to Humahuaca. (Spanish). Producer. Argentina 2005. Second in the trilogy of documentaries directed by Norberto "Negro" Ramírez and produced by Eduardo Montes-Bradley on the culture of the NorthWest region of Argentina known as la Puna, mainly Jujuy and Salta provinces. From Frankfurt to Humahuaca focuses on the life and works of Jorge Lovisolo, disciple of The Frankfurt School of philosophy, author of numerous essays. The film deals with Lovisolo's obsessions in a sort of self-imposed exile in Salta; his takes on religion within the local communities, the thoughts of Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Theodore Adorno and others.^[27]
12. Kopla Vera, Producer. Argentina, c.2006. First of a trilogy by director Norberto N. Ramírez on intellectuals residing in the Northwest region of Argentina known as la Puna, mainly Jujuy and Salta provinces. Kopla Vera focuses on the life and works of Jesús Ramón Vera, author of numerous verses inspired in the liturgical carnival of Jujuy.
13. El hombre invisible, Producer. Argentina, 2005. Directed by Eduardo López. The film is a tribute to legendary film editors in Argentina.
14. Yo y el tiempo, Producer, Argentina, 2005. Third documentary on Norberto N. Ramírez trilogy on intellectuals. Yo y el tiempo is a documentary on Juan José Botelli, poet.
15. Dirigido por..., Producer. Argentina, 2004. Film directed by Rodolfo Durán on the craft of film making. Through a series of interviews to some of Argentin's best known directors and filmmakers. Featured interviews with: Adolfo Aristarain, Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Film Luis Puenzo, and others.
16. Insurgentes, (Spanish). Producer, Editor. Argentina, c. 2006. Dir. Pablo Doudchisky. Shot in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The documentary focuses on the connections between terrorist organizations in South America.
17. Ecce Homo, (Spanish) Producer, editor. Argentina, c. 2005. Dir. Eduardo Montes-Bradley. Original Interview by Ana Da Costa from Biblioteca Nacional. The film is based on the las known interview to Juan Filloy.
18. Las memorias del señor Alzheimer, (Spanish). Producer. Argentina, 2004. Directed by Sergio Belloti. The film has as sole protagonist Jorge "Dipi" Di Paola, a dadaist-exentric, writer-poet, an unconventional character of the Buenos Aires underground during the seventies. The film was shot in 2007, shortly before Di Paola's death in Tandil, some 450 kilometers from the capital of Argentina. In the film, Di Paola, a disciple of Witold Gombrowicz recalls the bygone days when the polish writer and himself shared a small apartment in the city of Buenos Aires and later in Di Paola's home-town of Tandil.
19. Negro sobre blanco, (Black on White) (Spanish). Producer. Argentina (2004). Dir. Eduardo López. Legendary negative cutting Margarita Bróndolo recalls the early days of cinematography in Argentina. As an employee of Estudios San Miguel and other pioneer institutions Bróndolo had an opportunity to work alongside iconic figures of the dolden era of film such as Eva Duarte . The documentary abunds in clips from some of the best know, and also forgotten titles of the South American caountry cinematheque. The film was produced by Montes-Bradley who commitioned Mr. Eduardo López to direct. López, himself a celebrity within the local film industry, has over 100 titles credited to his name. His credits as editor include films by Academy Award Nominee Adolfo Aristarain.^[28]
20. Jorge Riestra, (Spanish). With Jorge Riestra. Producer, Editor. 80 min., Argentina (2004). A film directed by Gustavo Postiglioni. A minor work on the saga of writers initiated by Montes-Bradley. This film seems more like a series of conversations with... than an actual documentary film. The subject, a rosarino writer (from the city of Rosario) is not sufficiently explore by the director, leaving the audience with a sense of despair. On the other hand, perhaps that was the intended purpose.
21. La oficina, (Spanish). Ass. Producer. Argentina. 2004. A documentary by first-time director Blas Eloy Martínez, son of laureate writer Tomás Eloy Martínez. The plot is set in the background of a red-tape paradise in the institutional nightmare of Argentine bureaucracy. "Office of Notifications" (as translated from the original title), shown life in the office or department is which all court notices are prepared and later delivered. The film centers on the lives of the bureaucrats and the art of delivering citations.
22. Una cierta mirada, (Spanish). With Juan José Sebreli, Writer, Producer, Director, Editor. Argentina, 2004. Built as a series of conversations with Juan José Sebreli (philosopher), is perhaps one of the most interesting of the documentaries on writers by Montes-Bradley. Sebreli recalls his entire life in front of camera taking the audience for a ride through timeless Buenos Aires. Sebreli's extraordinary perception of the surroundings, the arts, the architecture and the music of the city he was born in and he loves is a constant throughout the entire film. In a way, this doc can be watch as a 20th century Tour Guide of Buenos Aires, a sketch on Peronism and yet, more.
23. Deliciosas perversiones polimorfas, (Spanish). With Alberto Laiseca. Writer, producer, director, editor. Argentina, 2002. The director meets Laiseca riding the oldest underground train in Buenos Aires and later at his studio. Laiseca seems an extraordinary mad-man. Some of the main issues discussed on this film are the relationship of the protagonist with his father, life in rural province of Córdoba in the middle of the Pampas, Edgar A. Poe, William Shakespeare and the imminent arrival of the Antichrist.
24. Recóndita Armonía, Argentina, 2002. Mario Diament is a renowned journalist and professor of journalism at the University of Miami On this film Diament recalls Jacobo Timerman and the years prior to and after the military coup of 1976 in Argentina.
25. Testigo del siglo, (Witness Of A Century), (Spanish). Writer, producer, director, editor. Argentina, 2003. Montes-Bradley directed under pen name Diana Hunter. Premiered at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI). The documentary is based on the memoirs of Ismael Viñas, legendary political, economist, founder of Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MALENA), former undersecretary of cuture during the Revolución Libertadora. Viñas reappears in front of Montes-Bradley's camera after twenty six years of self imposed exile. first in Israel, then in the US. During a series of interviews conducted in Florida, USA, Viñas reflects on his youth, on his brother David, on his father, a well political character during the times of Hipólito Yrigoyen, and a Federal Judge in Patagonia during the uprisings portrayed in Rebellion in Patagonia during the early 1920s. Viñas also recalls his imprisonment during the Peronist period, and with particular emphasis his relationship with Ernesto Che Guevara, and Salvador Allende amongst many other relevant figures of the period. On release, the film caused somewhat of a commotion. It was acclaimed and criticize by extremist elements on the right and particularly on the left where the Ismael Viñas portrayed on the documentary was perceived as a traitor to the Marxist principles he once so strongly embraced.^[29][30]
26. El equilibrista, (Spanish). Writer, producer, director, editor.^[31] Argentina, 2003. Little is known about this documentary based on the trials and tribulations of Argentine writer Dalmiro Saenz.
27. Pérez Celis, (Spanish) Producer, writer, director. USA 2005. The documentary, a portrait of Pérez Celis, captures the artist at work in his atelier in Little Haiti. Throughout a series of conversations with Celis, Montes-Bradley manages to capture rare moments showing the artist at work. The creative process, the brushes on canvas, the mixing of colors, and the drawing of sketches share time on the screen with the anecdotal, and traces of a political road map followed by Celis from the mid 1940's to the present.^[32]
28. Le mot Juste, (The Right Word), (Spanish). Writer, Producer, Director, Editor. Argentina, 200? The documentary tracks Héctor Tizón to his hometown of Yala, Jujuy, Argentina in Jujuy, Argentina. In a series of interviews the writer refers to his early childhood and the traumatic experience on living on the edge of two extremely different cultures: the Quechua universe of his native homeland and the Spanish culture of the conquistadores^[33]
29. Marcos Ribak is Andrés Rivera, (Spanish). With Andrés Rivera and Susana Fiorito. Director, producer, editor. Argentina, 200?
30. Planeta Bizzio, (Spanish). Producer, editor. Argentina, 2003. Montes-Bradley, hires fresh-out-of-film school Nadina Fushimi to direct, and interview Sergio Bizzio, an offbeat-poet, playwright and novelist.
31. No matarás, (Thou Shall Not Kill), (Spanish). Writer, producer, director, editor. 2004. Biographical film on Marcelo Birmajer, a Jewish-Argentine writer, frequently at odds with the overwhelming "progressive"-minded cultural aparatik of Buenos Aires. In the film, Birmajer seems lost somewhere between his native Buenos Aires and the Middle East; holding a tight grip on the umbilical cord that his Jewish-mother preserves intact for generations to-come.
32. La otra orilla, (Spanish). Producer, editor. Argentina, 2003. A biographical sketch of Argentine writer Luis Gusmán.
33. Saludablemente en pelotas, (Spanish). Producer, editor. Argentina, 2003. A biographical sketch of Argentine writer Juan Sasturain.
34. Crónicas Mexicas, Writer, producer, director, editor. Argentina, 200?. Montes-Bradley (as Rita Clavel) teams-up with Martín Caparrós following on the steps of Hernán Cortés from Veracruz, on golf coast of Mexico, to Tenochtitlan, the ancient capital of the Aztec Empire. Caparrós becomes the omnipresent and omniscient protagonist of this journey through geography and time. His acute sense of irony and wit becomes a permanent fixtures throughout the entire film, provoking the audience into uncharted: the politically incorrect history of Latin America.
35. La célula fugitiva, (Spanish). A biographical sketch of Argentine journalist-philosopher José Pablo Feinmann. Producer, Editor. Argentina, 2002. Dir. Mariana Russo.
36. Desandando el tiempo, (Spanish). Producer, editor. Argentina, 200?. Dir. Valentina Carrasco, pseudonymous of Rodolfo Durán. A biographical sketch of Argentine writer Juan Jacobo Bajarlía.
37. En el nombre del padre, a biographical sketch of Argentine writer Ana María Shua. Producer, Editor. Argentina, 2002. Dir. Ma. Andrea Dominguez.
38. Espléndida decadencia, (Spanish). A biographical sketch of Argentine writer Daniel Guebel. Producer, Editor. Argentina, 2002
39. Cortázar: apuntes para un documental, Witter, producer, director, editor. Argentina, 2002. The documentary approaches the argument dividing critics over the nature of Cortazar's political views and perspectives. Includes previously unseen footage of Cortazar shot by the author himself in front of a mirror and other scenes of Cortázar next to his first wife Aurora Bernárde, and Octavio Paz in India,^{[34][35][36][37]} and with Carole Dunlop in Paris.
40. Los cuentos del timonel, (Spanish). Writer, Producer, Director, Editor. Argentina, 2001. The documentary deals with Osvaldo Bayer, a controversial political figure and historian. The film was shot on Bayer's residence in Linz am Rhein, Germany, were he spends six months of every year.^[38]
41. Jorge Giannoni. NN, ése soy yo (NN, The One In The Picture Is Me). (Spanish). A film on Jorge Giannoni. Guest Appearance by EM-B as having personally known the protagonist. Dir by: Gabriela Jaime, Argentina, 2000.
42. Harto The Borges, (Spanish). Documentary on Jorge Luis Borges. Includes rare TV footage with Jorge Luis Borges and María Kodama aired on the occasion of Borge's 80th birthday. The film also includes interviews with Franco Lucentini, Martín Caparrós and Ariel Dorfman. Harto The Borges was shot in Milan, Rome, Paris, Geneva and Buenos Aires. Writer, Producer, Director, Editor. Iruña Films, Argentina, 2000.^{[39][40][41][42][43]} Harto The Borges had a theatrical release in Buenos Aires on September 2000 and was well received by the local critics.^[44] Most recently the film was presented in digital format on Diario Clarín's literary magazine "Revista de Cultura Ñ" under the title: "Harto The Borges: Ten Years After"^[45]
43. Soriano (The documentary), Iruña Films. Argentina, 1998. Perhaps the only film ever made on Osvaldo Soriano, a Best-Seller author in Argentina and Italy in the 1980s. At least three of Soriano's best known novels made it to the silver screen. Soriano was shot in Paris, Rome and Buenos Aires following on the footsteps of Osvaldo Soriano into exile in the 1970s. The film is not a celebration of Soriano but rather a fair and balanced approach to his life through the voice of friends and detractors. With testimonies by Rodrigo Fresán, Juan Forn, Martín Caparrós, Osvaldo Bayer, Eduardo Galeano and more. ^{[46][47][48][49][50][51]}
44. El sekuestro (The Kidnapping) Iruña Films, 1997. Fiction, Satire. Starting Sandra Ballesteros and Rodolfo Ranni. The critics destroyed the film the day of its premier at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival. However, The Kid Napping remains the director's favorite to this date. The Kid Napping was shot in the state of Florida in 1995 and, on November 4 of the same year Montes-Bradley married the leading-lady Sandra Ballesteros^[52]. The film is a political farce taking on the events that so profoundly marked Argentine society during the nineteen seventies. It has been said that the plot is an excuse to mock the struggle of the guerrilla organizations that confronted the military regime led by General Jorge Rafael Videla. According to Montes-Bradley, The Kid Napping is a farce and nothing more than a farce. Many would disagree. El Sekuestro is set in an imaginary country named Rio Hondo where a band of revolutionary improvisers kidnap the wrong man, one that no one is prepared to pay a ransom for.</ref>^[53]
45. American Manifesto, (English). (short) Writer, Producer, Director, Editor. Argentina (1993). American Manifesto premiered at the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (BAFICI) in 2005. It was shot in a club called Muddy's, in Denver, in the winter of 1993. The protagonist name is Steve, last name unknown. The film was shot on Hi-8 and is all-in-one take. Steve has just been released from jail and he is quite unhappy with America where says what prevails is a dysfunctional "shistem". The film became a cult film in internet and still can be found in several YouTube-like sites.
46. Double Obsession, (English). Fiction. Starring Margaux Hemingway, Beth Fisher, Scott Valentine Jamie Horton and Frederic Forrest. Co-Witter, producer, director. Edited by John Venzon. TriStar Columbia / Reivaj Films, 1992. Perhaps the sole merit of this thriller is the fact that is one of Margo Hemingway's last. Otherwise is just another B-Movie which did quite well on Television Worldwide. The film was shot on Campus at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Montes-Bradley hardly ever talks about this film written by himself in collaboration with Jeffrey Delman and Rick Marx. Note: The film was also known as Mirror Image.^{[54][55][56][57][58]}
47. SmoothTalker, (English). Fiction. Starring Lisa Weikgenant, Peter Crombi, Stuart Whitman and Burt Ward. Co-Writer, Prod. USA, 1992. During the shooting of SmoothTalker Montes-Bradley and Lisa Weikgenant moved-in together, first to his apartment in Los Angeles and soon thereafter to Denver, Colorado. The relationship lasted at least four years. Lisa is also known for her stage name: Blair Parker.
48. Tríptico Vertical, (Short) Writer, Producer, Director, Editor. USA, 1986. Not much is known about the nearly fifteen minutes art-documentary on the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. It was shot in Buenos Aires sometime in 1984, shortly after the return to democratic rule. Music by Julio Lacarra.
49. Man maste ju leva, Actor. Dir. Margareta Vinterheden. Sweden, 1978. Very little information is available on this first movie.

The great pretender

El gran simulador (The Great Pretender, 2006) is the documentary in which Montes-Bradley mocks a group piqueteros who have been manifesting on an ongoing border dispute with Uruguay over the installation of a paper-mill plant property of Botnia a commercial firm based in Finland. The idea of ridiculing a "popular cause" is unusual in Argentina where documentaries are often aimed in the exact opposite direction. The Monty-Pythonesque approach to the cause of the environmentalists did more for the popularity of the filmmaker than the previous twenty years dedicated to making documentaries on writers and philosophers and alike, which resulted on an extraordinary library of more than forty titles on Latin American Culture. The media overplayed the imminent release of El gran simulador in Buenos Aires in December 2005, and film was ultimately censured by the National Institute of Cinematography (Incaa). In January 2006, Montes-Bradley and his family were forced to seek save-Heaven in neighboring Uruguay where the documentary was well received and released on January 12, 2006. In a most recent note El gran simulador was ultimately released in Argentina in April 2008, and distributed by Editorial Perfil, the opposition media conglomerate own by Jorge Fontevecchia.

Music Videos

Eduardo Montes-Bradley directed a handful of music-videos at odds with the dominant trends at a time in which MTV Latino was still in the experimental stage. Rumbera, by Willy Chirino, (Sony Music, 1994 soon became a cult video-clip, not only because it was shot in one single take seven minutes long, but because of the extravaganza brought to the screen by the characters. Rumbera was shot in a South Beachcabaret and included monkeys, transvestites, fire-eaters, a salsa-band, dancers and almost a hundred extras. Rumbera opened the doors to salsa in the regular basis in MTV Latino, until then, exclusively focused to Rock, Pop and ballads from South America. Rumbera, shot on S-16 mm, screened and compete in Havana, Cuba at the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, in December 1994. That was the first time the public had the opportunity to see Willy Chirino on the Cuban screen where he remains, like Olga Guillot, strictly blacklisted. Another interesting music-video by EM-B is Dale Pascual by "Los enanitos verdes", a Chilean pop-band. Dale Pascual was shot in 35mm in La Cava, a slum in San Isidro, in the Province of Buenos Aires. The track spells out the hardships a have-not in Argentina. La Cava provided the setting typical of neo-realism which emphasized the hard living conditions, unemployment and recession. To underline the sacrifice the director staged the crucifixion of a naked boy. The image was too much for the networks in most Latin American countries. In Chile the film was censured and MTV refused to play it across the board. Dale Pascual marked a turning point and the end of M-B's career as a music-video director.

Bibliography

Books

• Los dedos del huracán. Short story. Children Literature. Included on "De Ola en Ola 3" School Textbook for Third Grade. Group Macmillian. Editorial Estrada S.A., Buenos Aires, Argentina. Illustrated by Eugenia Nobati. p. 62-67^[59]

• Cortázar sin barba. Madrid: Random House Mondadori. 2005. pp. 394 Hard Cover. ISBN 84-8306-603-3.  In less than five hundred pages the author exposes the mechanisms used to build Cortázar: the myth, providing at the same time the tools to destroy the myth, or better yet, helping Cortázar back into his more human and transcendent dimension. Montes-Bradley had previously boarded at least two other sacred cows of the Argentine cultural aparatik: Borges and Soriano. With Cortázar sin Barba (Cortázar without a beard) Montes-Bradkey, once again goes for one of the untouchables. Montes-Bradley approaches the pathological relationship of the author with his mother in face of an absent father. The illegitimate nature of the birth of Cortázar's mother and the clandestine relationship of his grandparents is traced in Cortázar's literary works with detectivesque obsession. "Cortázar sin barba" (Cortázar without a beard), is well documented and written in the style, no longer visible unfortunately, of many classic biographies in the English literature which will tend to prove not "Who killed" the man but Who made him up. Hence, the French accent in Cortázar turns out to be no more than a dysfunctional dislalia, his father allegedly a diplomat in Belgium at the time of Cortázar's birth is no diplomat but rather a salesman working for his father-in-law who never wanted to marry granny. "No one writes biographies like this one any more" said Joaquin Marco in his review for El Cultural in Madrid. "Biographers no longer write like Richard Ellmann and no foundations dares to finance an undertaking such as the one Montes-Bradley has chosen to write". But Montes-Bradley goes beyond the simple facts of a life tylored for a generation desperately seeking revolutionaries and literary heroes, to penetrates deeper into the fiber of the Argentine society. Montes-Bradley takes us through loyalty and betray in Argentina at the time the Spanish Civil War; Fascism at the University where Cortázar taught French Literature in the nineteen forties when Peronism came to occupy the space left vacant by the un-fatherly figure of the man who bailed living no trace behind. "Cortázar sin barba" is more than just biography, in a way it is a X-Ray to the bottom half of the 20th century in Argentina. The first edition of Cortázar sin barba was published by Sudamericana, Argentina, 2004.^[60][61][62]

• Água No Terceiro Milenio Bilingual Anthology of Short Stories. Selection of awarded works at the Literary Award "Agua no terceiro Milenio",^[63] Brazil. Published in Portuguese and Spanish. Pilar Editors, Brasilia, 2000. P. 142, 143, 144. Includes the short story "Das schwerste gewicht" previously published in "Its All a Lie" Ya se que todo es mentira, Editorial del Nuevo Extremo, Buenos Aires 1999.

• Osvaldo Soriano, un retrato. In Spanish. Grupo Editorial Norma, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2000. In Italian by Sperling & Kupfer Editori, Milan, Italy, 2001, 164pp. Collection: Continente Desaparecido, directed and coordinated by Gianni Minà. Translated from Spanish by Gina Maneri. This book summons a series of interviews in connection with the documentary film on the same subject by Eduardo Montes-Bradley. The list of interviewed men and women includes the following names: Ariel Dorfman, Eduardo Galeano, Ana María Shua, Martín Caparrós, Giani Minnà, Mempo Giardinelli... There are also a few chapters, introduction and epilogue written by Montes-Bradley with a fare amount of footnotes and references.^[64][65]

• Ya sé que todo es mentira (Its All a Lie). Short Stories. In Spanish. Editorial Nuevo Extremo, Buenos Aires, 1999. Some of the short stories included in this compilation have been previously published in English in literary magazines in the US. Foreword by Osvaldo Bayer. 199 pp.

• Senxo, Selected Poems. In Spanish. Editorial Grupo Archivo de Comunicación, New York, 1984. Foreword by Armando Tejada Gómez. Out of print.

Journalism

Eduardo Montes-Bradley has contributed with the following publications: Les cinemas de la Amerique Latine,^[66] by the Association Rencontres Cinémas d'Amérique Latine de Toulouse France; La Jornada, México; the monthly review Latinoamérica e Tutto il Sud dell Mondo, Italy; and in Argentina with the literary magazine Esperando a Godot; the art-magazine Revista Lote, Venado Tuerto, Suplemento Radar published weekly by Página/12, El Amante de cine, "Diario Perfil", "Revista Ñ" Clarin,^[67] Critica de Argentina; and La Nación. Eduardo Montes-Bradley is also a frequent collaborator with the literary blog "Nación Apache"^[68]

His interventions in the media can be classified as follows: a. In-depth articles on subjects as diverse as the life of Dean Reed in the Soviet Union and the aftermath of the Battleship Potemkin; b. Sudden and brief pieces on current affairs with a particular emphasis in domestic politics in Argentina. One of Montes-Bradley's bull's eye of choice appears to be the National Institute of Cinematography (INCAA) a government institution repeatedly denounced for its high levels of corruption, its known arbitrary rules and censorship and the discretionary handling of public resources. c. Letters to the Editor. Probably the most curious form of interventionism. Montes-Bradley has written a substantial number of letters to the editors in the past becoming a regular de facto columnist in sections of newspapers and magazines otherwise reserved for the occasional reader.

In-Depth: One of the most relevant in-depth articles deals with the aftermath of Battleship Potemkin. According to the official story, as narrated by Sergei Eisenstein in his The Battleship Potemkin,1925, the ship disappears right in front of the camera after firing twice against the city of Odessa in 1905. Montes-Bradley's questions the mutiny and the nature and proportion of the bombardment of Odessa as well as the whereabouts of the ship and her crew until the triumph of the Russian Revolution in 1917. The piece refutes Eisenstein's arguments bringing some lite to the years that followed the events of 1905 and to the truth behind the intentions of Eisenstein in his celebrated movie, a work-for-hire commended by the Communist Party long after the facts. The article was published in Página/12, on March 7, 2005. Another article worth reading is El Elvis Rojo. The Red Elvis is the story of Dean Reed, Colorado-born country singer who became an expatriate in East Geramany in the nineteen seventies after a brief sojourn in Latin America, particularly Chile and Argentina. The story of Reed is surrounded by mystery and false assumptions. It has been said, for instance, that the red cowboy worked for the CIA, that he was a double agent, that he moved was a KGB agent of Propaganda and that he was a womanizer playing a dangerous game that ultimately cost him his own life. The Red Elvis was published for the first time in Spanish in Página/12, on January 27, 2005.

Appearances in other documentaries

Montes-Bradley appeared in Margaux Hemingway from the series E! True Hollywood Story produced by E! Entertainment Television^[69]

As public Speaker/Panelist

• Coordinator: "Film and literature". II Seminar on Documentary Film, Gijón, Asturias, Spain. June 1999
• Coordinator: "Soriano: A Portrait" and "Harto The Borges". 1999: Hispanic Literature and Film at the End of the Millennium. Florida International University, Department of Modern Languages, November 1999.
• Coordinator: II Annual Congress on Hispanic film and Literature. Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Americana, Miami, Florida. USA. October 1999
• Panelist next to Donald Shaw y Jared Loewenstein. Screening of "Harto The Borges", fundamentals. The Latin American Studies Program, University of Virginia, November 1999
• Director of the Film Week at Casa de América: Images on Borges / Borges on Film. Casa de América, Madrid, Spain. December 1999.
• Conference: The Subject on Film: "The Documentary". Universite de Toulouse – Le Mirail, Toulouse, France. Film Department and Department of Hispanic Resources.March 2000
• Panelist: "Luis Buñuel Today". Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Americana, Miami,FL. USA. September 2000
• Conference: "Las vidas paralelas de Montes-Bradley" Critic Essay by Dr. Pilar Roca. Department of Foreign Languages.^[70]

Memberships

Montes-Bradley is a member of International Documentary Association (IDA), Phi Theta Kappa, The American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP), Sons of the American Revolution (SAR), Association of Personal Historians, and the American Club of Buenos Aires.

Notes

References

Persondata
Name	Montes-Bradley, Eduardo
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 9, 1960
Place of birth	Argentina
Date of death
Place of death