Brock Labrenz
Director
Artist Brock Labrenz brings a visceral, sensory-rich perspective to every project he creates. Among other venues, Brock’s work has been presented by PERFORMA, the premier visual art performance biennial; Frankfurt’s Das TAT, Germany’s leading avant-garde theater presenter; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the University of North Carolina School of the Arts; and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York.
Born in Hickory, North Carolina, Brock developed the tactile aesthetic that characterizes all of his work early on. He studied the mechanics of acting and dance at Columbia University, Fordham University/The Ailey School, and The Juilliard School, from which he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts. Upon graduation, Brock joined Ballett Frankfurt as a soloist, where he worked with world-renowned choreographer William Forsythe.
Brock then brought his unique perspective and performance experience to bear on the craft of filmmaking. While still a performer with Ballett Frankfurt in 2004, the company produced his first short film, Full Quote Bergman, which premiered at Das TAT, Frankfurt/Main, and later in Bologna, Italy. In 2005, he collaborated with William Forsythe to create the six-hour solo performance installation piece Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time for PERFORMA 05 produced by Creative Time.
In 2006, Brock made the experimental dance film Heute Nacht. Then, in collaboration with New York’s Moving Theater, he produced and directed a suite of five short films called Impermanent Collection: The Films (2007), which were presented by the Whitney Live at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Brock was selected as a Movement and Dance Theatre Artist-in-Residence in 2007, during which time he choreographed and directed the 23-minute short film Naked Product, which premiered at the Stella Adler Studio in New York City. He has also directed six short films with producer Jonathan Stack for the Alliance of Civilizations Media Fund.
Brock is currently co-producing, Devoted to Dance, a film about Hungarian dancer and choreographer Ivan Marko, as well as directing and producing a series of operatic documentaries for the Greenwich Music Festival, including Claudio Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse and Viktor Ullman’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, due to premiere at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Spring 2010. He is also developing the romantic-thriller Chinaland, a narrative feature film set in China, in collaboration with Natalie Thomas.
Natalie Thomas
Producer
Natalie Thomas’s theater credits include Bellona, Destroyer of Cities at The Kitchen, Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) at PS122, The Wooster Group’s House/Lights at St. Ann’s Warehouse and Lucid at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Her film and TV credits include Month To Month, Payback, Heute Nacht, Sunday, The Guiding Light, and Law and Order. Natalie is a actor and producer with An Films. Natalie is a former company member of Nederlands Dans Theater II and William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. www.ntprofile.com
James McKay
Producer
James McKay has worked on the production of multiple film, television and web video projects. Credits include Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean II & III, Dreamworks Pictures’ Road to Perdition, television programming for Discovery Channel/TLC and the Food Network, Sony Entertainment’s web series Behind the Star, Project Rebirth – a 10-hour documentary on the September 11th tragedy, and numerous other documentary and independent film projects in New York City and Chicago. James most recently completed The Farm: 10 Down for the National Geographic Channel.
Bradley Grant
Cinematographer
Bradley has worked in various capacities on the following films:
The Sorcerers Apprentice (dir. Jon Turteltaub), The Taking of Pelham 123 (dir. Tony Scott) The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan), The Pirates of the Caribbean II and III (dir. Gore Verbinski), Déjà Vu (dir. Tony Scott), Minority Report (dir. Steven Spielberg), Big Fish (dir. Tim Burton), Master & Commander (dir. Peter Weir), and Road to Perdition (dir. Sam Mendes). His television credits include Bored to Death, Nurse Jackie, Law and Order, and Law and Order: SVU.
He is pleased to be the Cinematographer-in-residence at An Films, helping to create works like Chair Story and The Edward Vilga Documentary.