Resume/FILM BIO: Gabriella Bregman (2018)
FILM BIO:
My filmmaking experience includes Film School (1992–1994,) Film Program at Los Angeles City College, (as International Film Student from the Netherlands paying out-of-state tuition.)
I worked at the art house movie theater chain The Laemmle Theatres throughout the 1990s.
I Interned and Volunteered at various independent film production companies (including IFC’s Next Wave Films, Samuel Goldwyn Films and Miramax Films,) and film organization Film Independent and their Spirit Awards and LA Film Festival in the early 2000s.
In 2001 I produced a very well received John Cassavetes Film Retrospective at the Laemmle Theatres, titled ‘Gena and John: A Cassavetes Retrospective,’ and including the definite documentary on Cassavetes, Charles Kiselyak’s ‘A Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes.’
The 3-months film retrospective showcased the complete directing work of my personal film inspiration John Cassavetes, generally considered “the father of American independent filmmaking,” and enjoyed the participation of Cassavetes’ main cast and crew.
Lastly, in my own filmmaking experience, I’ve been writing and documenting my own story as a Queer Female Filmmaker in Los Angeles and am in production of a Feature Documentary about LGBTQ US-Immigration and DOMA Immigration-Exclusion Policy, titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights.’
I got my start in the US as an International Film Student from the Netherlands and faced enormous hardship in the anti-LGBTQ US Immigration system.
I identify as a Gender Nonconforming Lesbian, “non-op” Trans-Masculine, Bi-Racial, from the Netherlands, Los Angeles-based, and am a Writer, Filmmaker and Producer.
I am also the Founder of a Nonprofit Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles.
My pronouns are: they/them/theirs.
The Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles — A Media Site & LA Film Mixers consists of Three Components; a Media Site featuring Original Short Video Content; Written Articles Film Criticism; and Film Mixers in physical spaces in Los Angeles.
I run these Two Projects, my Feature Documentary and the Film Organization, from a Film Production Office in Hollywood, and own all the Film Equipment necessary for these projects.
RESUME:
GABRIELLA BREGMAN
EDUCATION:
Los Angeles City College, Film Program (1992–1994) Certificate in Cinema
EXPERIENCE:
Founder:
Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles — A Media Site & LA Film Mixers (2018)
Website:
queerfemalefilmmakerslosangeles.org
Writer-Documentary Filmmaker-Producer:
Feature Documentary “The Queer Case for Individual Rights” (2017)
Producer:
John Cassavetes Film Retrospective (2001) “Gena and John: A Cassavetes Retrospective” and Westcoast Premiere of Charles Kiselyak’s “A Constant Forge: An Exploration of the Life and Art of John Cassavetes”
Q&A Moderator:
John Cassavetes Film Retrospective (2001) Actors Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Seymour Cassel, Lelia Goldoni, cameraman Michael Ferris and composer Bo Harwood
Press:
LA Weekly (Chuck Wilson,) Cinemad Magazine (Mike Plante,) Venice Magazine (Nancy Bishop and Gary Oldman.)
Official Sponsors:
The Laemmle Theatres, IFP/West (Film Independent) and Venice Magazine.
Celebrity Escort:
FIND Independent Spirit Awards (Diego Luna 2002, Lili Taylor 2003)
Special Events:
LA Film Film Festival (2004, Film Independent)
Independent Spirit Awards (2002 and 2003, Film Independent)
American Film Institute (1993–2001, The Laemmle Theatres)
American Film Market (1993–2001, The Laemmle Theatres)
Outreach Intern: Film Independent (2003)
Story Analyst: Samuel Goldwyn Films (2002)
Acquisitions Assistant: Miramax Films (2002)
Distribution Assistant: IFC/Next Wave Films (2001)
Box Office: The Laemmle Theatres (1993–2001)
OBJECTIVE:
Nonprofit Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles - A Media Site & LA Film Mixers (2018)
Feature Documentary “The Queer Case for Individual Rights” on LGBTQ US-Immigration Discrimination and Exclusion-Policy History (2017)
ACTIVITIES:
Founder of Nonprofit Film Organization Queer Female Filmmakers Los Angeles - A Media Site & LA Film Mixers (2018)
In Production of Feature Documentary on LGBTQ US-Immigration Discrimination (Exclusion-Policy History) “The Queer Case for Individual Rights” (2017)
Film Independent Member (2001 — current)
Outfest Member (2013 — current)
SKILLS:
Film Programming, Film Analysis, Film Criticism, Grant Proposals, Essay Writing, Documentary Filmmaking, Film Producing, Crowd Funding, Social Media, Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X, DSLR Cameras and DSLR Lenses, Sound Mixers and Recorders, Social Justice, Women’s and LGBTQ Rights
LANGUAGES:
English, Dutch
INTERESTS:
Filmmaking, Film Producing, Social Media, Film Editing, Film Criticism, Journalism, Creative Writing, Literature, Social Studies, Gender Studies, Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Novelette:
“Scenes of Idolatry and Resentment (2004)” (2004)
Feature Screenplay:
“The Queer Case for Individual Rights” (2008)
Book:
“The Queer Case for Individual Rights & Other Essays” (2018)
Feature Documentary:
“The Queer Case for Individual Rights” (2017)
Articles (Freelance, 2015–2018):
ARTICLES (Freelance, 2015–2018):
A Note on the State of Women in Film (2016)
A Few Notes on LGBTQ Filmmaking (2017)
Some Thoughts on the State of Lesbian Filmmaking in the US (part 1 of 5) (2018)
Film Organization QUEER FEMALE FILMMAKERS LOS ANGELES (2018)
John Cassavetes Film Retrospective (Bregman Films 2001) (2018)
On ‘Moonlight and the Subject of Positive Representation (2017)
My 2018 Oscar Pick for Best Picture (2018)
In Defense of Rationality (2018)
In Defense of Individual Rights (2018)
Immigration Law Explained: The Irony of a Simultaneously Capped (temporary work visas) and Uncapped (family law marriage) Visa Immigration System (2014)
A Few Notes on US Immigration Exclusion Polices Towards Women-and LGBTQ Immigrants (2014)
The Root Cause Of Misogyny, And The Necessity Of Free Will (Gender Binary System notes, part 1 of 7) (2016)
The Male And Female Brain, And The “Cause” Of Transgenderism (Gender Binary System notes, part 2 of 7) (2016)
All Articles Written by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Pictures Owned by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Rights Reserved (2018)
Background:
In the past I’ve struggled with my own inter-sectioning identities, (including that of being an artist/filmmaker even, besides being a gender-nonconforming lesbian, an undocumented immigrant or “overstay,” and bi-racial, Dutch and Indonesian-Dutch,) and moreover the lack of knowledge, and so self-knowledge, around them.
Ultimately I realized I was not living my authentic identity openly and freely and felt severely disconnected to both the LGBTQ community and the film industry, due to my undocumented status.
On July 9, 2015 I came out publicly as “Queer and Undocumented,” as what I call being a DOMA-Victim and and DOMA-Overstay, as I have always recognized the Defense Of Marriage Act of 1996 (artile 3) to be Federal LGBTQ Exclusion-Policy and LGBTQ US-Immigration Discrimination.
In 2015 DOMA finally got struck down by the US Supreme Court as Unconstitutional.
BTW, I did not qualify for 2014 DACA, (missing the childhood arrival entry age of 16 and under, by 3 years,) and unlike most DACA recipients, having immigrated absolutely Legally 24 years ago, at age 19 in 1992, on a 5-Year International Student Visa, through enrollment in Film School in Los Angeles.
I grew up in a small town, and with a working class background, in Leiden, the Netherlands, when professions were very gendered, according to an uninformed, hetero-normative society, and I was shunned throughout my high school days for looking and being androgynous or butch, during the international AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
As an aspiring writer and “repressed” lesbian, (my whole life I looked and acted like a heterosexual guy basically,) looking up to James Dean, Jim Morrison, the Beat poets and just a handful of others, as renaissance artists, capable of transcending genders somehow, I saw film school in Hollywood as my only way out.
In the Netherlands during the 80s I grew up on primarily American movies, (besides Italian Neo-Realism and French New Wave,) particularly influenced by 70s filmmakers John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick and Sidney Lumet, and the start of the 1990s independent film movement and New Queer Cinema specifically, (and later on working and paying my taxes in Santa Monica at the Laemmle family-owned Los Angeles movie theater art-house chain The Laemmle Theatres, where Kimberly Peirce’s ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ in 1999 became paramount to my realization of my trans-masculine gender identity.)
Before the New Queer Cinema of the 90s I had only caught glimpses of my sexual orientation and gender identity portrayed in the plays of Tennessee Williams and films like ‘Dog Day Afternoon,’ ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn,’ ‘Silkwood’ and ‘The Conformist’ and the literature of Virginia Woolf, of Oscar Wilde, Anais Nin, Rimbaud, Pasolini, Genet, Allen Ginsberg, my only LGBTQ education available.
In 1992, at age 19, I moved to Los Angeles alone and legally on a 5-year Student Visa to study film at the Los Angeles City College Film Department, with hopes to get an MFA from a 4-year university on a Student Visa extension, in a pre-internet and digital video era when the big idea for aspiring filmmakers was to shoot a 16mm film and get into the Sundance Film Festival.
I finished a little over 2 of my 3 years Film Program as an international student only, due to my 1992 immigration marriage to an opposite-sex US citizen and premature divorce in 1994, and a lot of Sundance premieres had their subsequent Los Angeles movie theater premieres at The Laemmle Theatres where I worked the box office for 9 years, from 1993 through 2001, and I firsthand witnessed what was to become known as the independent film movement of the 90s.
In 2001 I produced a John Cassavetes Film Retrospective, officially sponsored by The Laemmle Theatres, Film Independent and Venice Magazine.
Throughout my 26 years in the US I have immersed myself in writing, from literary novel and play- and screenwriting to essay- and journal writing, focussing particularly on “personal drama” as “creative nonfiction,” and all disciplines have ultimately eased it for me to make a switch from narrative feature screenwriting to documentary filmmaking.
In 2018 I am publishing my story and essays in a book, titled ‘The Queer Case for Individual Rights & Other Essays.” (2018)
If you enjoyed this Article, please Recommend it by pushing the Clap Button at the bottom of the page, or share in your Social Media, or both.
All Articles Written by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Pictures Owned by Gabriella Bregman (TM). All Rights Reserved (2018)
