STORM (7:02)
Created by Brian Gonzalez
Featuring Maria Bruun
Music by Many Fingers, Son Lux, Zoe Keating
Assistants: Greta Zozula, Sarah Geunther, Bridget Swanick
SYNOPSIS:
Storm (7:02) created by Brian Gonzalez, features dancer Maria Bruun. A lone woman expresses a vibrant dance to summon the memory of a man’s touch, a memory that ultimately destroys her. Music by Many Fingers, Son Lux and Zoe Keating.
CONTRIBUTOR BIOS:
Brian Gonzalez
www.taxiplasm.net
Brian Gonzalez began his film career as a sophomore in high school as an active member of the SAYSi Media Arts program in San Antonio, Texas, with roots in video art. In 2005, at age seventeen, he shot his feature film as Director of Photography, La Tragedia de Macario, which gathered acclaim at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival and more. That fall he began attending the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City. His first freshman film Positive, won the FYI (Film Your Issue) Film Festival with Oscar Winner George Clooney as the president of the jury and was awarded at the UN by Ellen Burstyn. The film was later featured on mtvU, PBS online and IFC’s Media Labs. The following summer he shot his second feature film, Clemente while directing shorts based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez short stories. In his thesis year at SVA, Gonzalez took influence from light installation artist Olafur Eliasson, sculptor and performance artist Zhang Huan and installation artist Rebecca Horn, to achieve entirely new aesthetics in the films he photographed, which earned him Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography at SVA’s Dusty Film Festival; awarded by Oscar-winner Robert Elswit, ASC.
Since graduating with honors from SVA in 2009, Gonzalez has worked predominantly as an Assistant Camera for various features, shorts with award-winning filmmakers from Michael Cuesta to Dee Rees as well as music videos and commercials for companies such as ESPN and Maybelline. At the same time he began doing promotional video work with Atlantic Records, filming recording artists like Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Halestorm, Fanfarlo and more. In November 2009 however, Gonzalez took time off to embrace a month-long artist residency at the Robert Wilson Watermill Center for Performance Art in Southampton where he collaborated with a creative team on Harbor, a large-scale video art piece inspired by Butoh dancing; attendants at the opening included singer Rufus Wainwright and funders included art patron Isabella Rossellini, writer Jonathan Safron Foer, David Bowie and more. For three years Gonzalez has also been a camera operator at Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week and in the beginning of 2010 he began directing fashion-inspired video pieces. He is currently directing more music videos and conceptual non-fiction films for Atlantic Records, including Get Me Out of My Mind for Panic! At the Disco and is committed to developing his own high-concept video art fusing light installation, performance art and fashion.
Maria Bruun
www.mariabruun.com
Maria’s passion for dance started at age 2. She knows various dance styles including Martha Graham Technique, Modern, Jazz, Show dance, Ballet, House and Lyrical. She has performed in musicals on television shows and in commercial and modern dance pieces all over Denmark and America. Most recently toured as a dancer and model for L’Oreal professional.
Maria’s conceptual dance/art video STORM is her latest choreographic work, which she stars in, wrote and co-directed. She has studied acting for 3 years at Legoland Show Academy and KYS EN TIGER performance schools, and has been working as a commercial, fitness, and dance related model since age 19.
Many Fingers
http://www.myspace.com/manyfingers
Son Lux
http://www.myspace.com/sonlux
Zoe Keating
http://www.zoekeating.com/
Zoë Keating is a one-woman orchestra. She uses a cello and a foot-controlled laptop to record layer upon layer of cello, creating intricate, haunting and compelling music. Zoë is known for both her use of technology – which she uses to sample her cello onstage – and for her DIY ethic, which has resulted in the sale of over 35,000 copies of her self-released albums and a devoted social media following.
Zoë’s grassroots, label-less approach has garnered her much public attention and press. She has been profiled on NPR’s All Things Considered, named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, elected a governor of the San Francisco chapter of the Recording Academy and awarded a performing arts grant from the Creative Capital Foundation. Zoë has spent much of 2011 touring across North America, young baby in tow, to support her latest album, Into the Trees, which spent 14 weeks on the Billboard classical charts.
Born in Canada and classically trained from the age of eight, Zoë spent her 20’s working at software startups while moonlighting as a cellist in rock bands. Inevitably, she combined the two and developed her now signature style while improvising for late night crowds at her San Francisco warehouse.
Zoë has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including Imogen Heap, Amanda Palmer, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears, DJ Shadow, John Vanderslice, Rasputina, Pomplamoose and Paolo Nutini. She is a regular collaborator with the creators of WNYC’s Radiolab and is also known for her work in film. Commissions include music for the San Francisco MOMA’s audio tour and soundtracks for the films Ghost Bird, The Devil’s Chair and Frozen Angels. Her cello playing can be heard on Mark Isham’s scores The Conspirator, Warrior and The Secret Life of Bees.
Greta Zozula
www.gretazozula.com
Great Zozula is an emerging cinematographer in New York City. She graduated from The School of Visual Arts in Film and Video where she was trained on 16mm and Digital cameras. After school, Greta worked as a camera assistant along side some of the most talented independent cinematographers in New York including Jody Lee Lipes (DP of Martha Marcy May Marlene, winner best director Sundance 2011) and Doug Emmett (DP of Monogamy, Audience Award at Tribeca 2010 and Best First Screenplay at The Independent Spirit Awards 2011). She also frequently works as a camera assistant and operator with Mother Productions. Greta’s current work as a cinematographer includes Rojo – a short ?lm shot in Guadalajara Mexico shot on HD and Beneath The Rocks – a feature ?lm shot in Brooklyn NY also shot on HD cameras. Recently completed work on Salt Water – short shot in Ft. Tilden shot on RED MX. Has a few ?lms in development at the moment.
