Nichola Bruce (born 1953) is a Britishavant garde film director,cinematographer,screenwriter, and artist.[1] Bruce uses an artistic approach to filmmaking alongside the use of digital technologies. Her use of digital film is accredited to the speed, creativity, and multi-layering that can be accessed through the technology.[2]Daily Variety featured Bruce in their article "10 Digital Directors To Watch"(2000) and noted that Bruce takes her inspiration from thesurrealists,Andrei Tarkovsky, and painting.[1]
Nichola Bruce was born in 1953 inBromley, England. She was raised inKent andLondon throughout her childhood. She began working with film, photography, art during her attendance atHornsey College of Art and atMiddlesex Polytechnic, beginning with super eight and 16mm.[2][3]
Bruce founded Muscle Films with Michael Coulson a film and television company, producing offbeat programming for British TV and cinema and part of a new wave of graphic artists and punk filmmakers in London. Bruce and Coulson created paintings as the starting point for their films and later developed scripts from the images. Bruce also founded a design company Kruddart with Michael Coulson, producing anarchic, collage-based material for publishersFaber and Faber andNew Scientist as well as working with many leading British film directors includingPeter Greenaway,John Boorman,Neil Jordan[4]
1984 film-makerNeil Jordan worked for several weeks in pre-production with artist filmmakers Nichola Bruce and Michael Coulson to create hundreds of detailed storyboard drawings for the featureThe Company of Wolves. The film's visuals were of particular importance, as Jordan explains:The visual design was an integral part of the script. It was written and imagined with a heightened sense of reality in mind.
Bruce's 1985 short horror/dramaWings of Death (BFI) which she co-directed with Mike Coulson, featuringDexter Fletcher andKate Hardie, explored addiction. It was reviewed inMonthly Film Bulletin in 1986 byMark Finch who described the film as "...certainly a curiosity--a modern morality tale, too long to be a commercial, too short to be a feature, but with a surer visual sense than many recent British films."[5]
Bruce collaborated with Coulson on many projects, includingThe Human Face[6] withLaurie Andersen and the music videoThe Blood of Eden forPeter Gabriel[1] featuring vocals bySinead O'Connor. Nichola Bruce and Michael Coulson were employed as visual co-ordinators by Peter Gabriel'sReal World working on a number of projects including an innovative approach to the marketing of theUs album, commissioning contemporary artists such asHelen Chadwick,Rebecca Horn,Nils-Udo,Andy Goldsworthy,David Mach andYayoi Kusama to create original artworks for each of the 11 songs on the multi-million-selling CD. Coulson and Bruce also documented the process on Hi-8 video and film.
Bruce was selected to create one of eight short films to be attached to the bandQueen's albumMade in Heaven.[7]
Britain's Club X (Channel 4) was co-created by Nichola Bruce and Michael Coulson.[8]
Her documentary featureThe Monument on the artistRachel Whiteread and the difficulties she faced to create the Holocaust memorial in Vienna provided an insight into the challenges that face artists making public works.
Bruce's first feature filmI Could Read the Sky (2000) featuringDermot Healy,Maria Doyle-Kennedy,Brendan Coyle andStephen Rea was inspired by the photographic novel by writer Timothy O'Grady and photographerSteve Pyke.[9] It focuses on the losses and memories of an old Irishman who spent most of his life working in England. The film has been described as "innovative, melancholic, and deeply moving film is a small gem, as much informed by literature as it is by cinema."[10] In Jill Nelmes and Jule Selbo's bookWomen Screenwriters: An International Guide (2015) it is explained that "Because the film is an adaptation of a photographic novel, rather than a filmed version of its original source, Bruce creates the events in layers of images that tell the story."[11] The music for the film was composed by Irish sean nós singer and member of Afro Celt Sound System,Iarla Ó Lionáird.Sinéad O'Connor,Noel Hill andLiam O'Maonlai also contributed to the soundtrack which was released byReal World Records.
Bruce was awarded aNESTA Fellowship in 2003 to studyperception and was mentored byRichard Gregory (CBE) resulting inStrangeness of Seeing[12] a body of work including a series of 26 films developed over a period of four years in collaboration with film maker Rebecca E Marshall.
Bruce's 2010 film about theApollo Moon landings,Moonbug, won the Special Jury Remi Award for Theatrical Feature Documentary at the 2011 Houston International Film Festival.Moonbug is both a photographic road trip and an exploration of how photographs become signpost for history as it documents photographerSteve Pyke as he sets out on a journey across America in his search to meet and photograph the Apollo space pioneers.[13] The pair also collaborated on a touring exhibition of Steve Pyke's Apollo portraits and space artefacts alongside a 3 Channel Triptych of theMoonbug film calledMan On The Moon.[14] MusicianMatt Johnson produced the soundtrack forMoonbug having previously worked with Bruce on her documentaryOne Man Show: Dramatic Art of Steven Berkoff in (1995).
Her award-winning feature documentary Axis of Light (2011) co-directed and produced withPia Getty[15] is a poignant and absorbing observation of the influences of conflict seen through the work of eight leading artists –Etel Adnan,Jananne Al–Ani,Ayman Baalbaki,Mona Hatoum,Rachid Koraïchi,Youssef Nabil,Shirin Neshat, Mona Saudi.
Source:[16]
| Award[17] | Film | Category | Organization | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Editing | Axis of Light | Feature Documentary | UNAFF/Stanford Award 2012 United Nations Association Film Festival[18] | Co-director and writer |
| Platinum Remi Award | Axis of Light | Feature Documentary | Houston International Film Festival 2012[19] | Co-director and writer |
| Special Jury Remi Award | Moonbug | Feature Documentary | 44th Houston International Film Festival 2011[19] | Producer, director, writer, and cinematographer |
| Ten Digital Directors to Watch Award | I Could Read The Sky | Feature Drama | Variety Magazine, Los Angeles 2000[20] | Director and writer |
| Best Writing | Wings of Death | Drama Short | Kraków Film Festival, Poland 1986[21] | Co-director and co-writer |
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)| International | |
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