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Elegance Bratton
US 2025 87'
⚬ Music
Out of the underground dance clubs on the South Side of Chicago, a group of friends turn a new sound into a global movement.
"promises a good time and delivers" - Variety
"blends civic and music history effortlessly while also having a truly banging soundtrack" - Roger Ebert
Producers | Chester Algernal Gordon, Elegance Bratton |
Executive Producers | Roger Ross Williams, Vince Lawrence, Geoff Martz, Siobhan Sinnerton, Johnny Webb, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Sam Branson, Jeffrey Soros, Andrew Blau, Luke Rodgers, Rick Rosenthal, Nancy Stephens, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Nina Fialkow, David Fialkow, Bill Harnisch, Ruth Ann Harnisch, Adam Lewis, Melony Lewis, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Meadow Fund, Lauren Haber, Kelsey Koenig, Brenda Robinson, Regina K. Scully, David Magdael |
Production Company | One Story Up |
Co-Production Company | Hidden Liight |
Cinematography | Lisa Rinzler |
Editor | Kristan Sprague, Jeremy Stullberg |
Music Supvervisor | Bonnie Greenberg, David Helfant |
Music | James Newbury |
Special Mention: Chopin's Nose Award | Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2025 |
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater near You Award | The Gotham Week Honors 2025 |
Sundance 2025 |
Thessaloniki IDF 2025 |
Indie Lisboa 2025 |
Millenium Docs Against Gravity 2025 |
Lighthouse IFF |
Provincetown IFF 2025 |
Inside Out Festival 2025 |
DC/DOX 2025 |
Sydney FF 2025 |
Tribeca 2025 |
Sheffield Doc Fest 2025 |
Filmfest Munich 2025 |
| Runtime | 87' |
| Spoken Languages | English |
| Production Countries | USA |
Elegance Bratton is an award-winning and boundary-breaking director, writer and producer. He began making films as a US Marine after spending a decade homeless. His work captures stories untold with an intention to show the universal power of our shared humanity. Bratton’s films have played in over 200 film festivals worldwide including the New York Film Festival, Toronto, Sundance, Outfest, BFI, Doc NYC, and the BlackStar Film Festival. He was named one of VARIETY’s 10 Directors to Watch for 2023. Bratton made his television debut as the creator and executive producer of Viceland’s MY HOUSE. The series, which chronicled underground competitive ballroom dancing, was nominated for Outstanding Documentary at the 2019 GLAAD Media Awards. In 2021, Bratton’s critically-acclaimed feature documentary, PIER KIDS, won the Independent Spirit Awards’ Truer Than Fiction Award, which is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition. PIER KIDS explores the lives of Black, homeless queer and transgender youth in New York. THE INSPECTION, his semi-autobiographical narrative fiction debut, world premiered as the opening night film of the Toronto International Film Festival Discovery section and was the closing night film of the New York Film Festival. The critically-acclaimed A24 film centers around a young homeless gay man who joins the Marine Corps to win back his mother’s love, but learns how to respect himself at bootcamp. The film has garnered numerous award nominations including from the Golden Globes, Gothams, and Film Independent Spirit Awards. Bratton is currently in post-production on the upcoming feature documentary, HELLFIGHTERS, which highlights the story of African American Jazz pioneer and music mogul James Reese Europe, who was a lieutenant in the 369th Infantry Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Bratton also co-runs the production company, Freedom Principle, alongside his producing partner, Chester Algernal Gordon. He was a Sundance 2020 Native Lab mentor and a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab mentor. Bratton holds a BS from Columbia University (2014) and MFA from NYU Tisch Graduate Film (2019). He and his partner live in Baltimore.
