Birthdate: May 3, 1979
Birthplace: Jersey City, New Jersey
Elegance Bratton is an independent filmmaker and photographer who has made a half-dozen short films, a reality series, a documentary, and his feature narrative writing-directing debut, The Inspection (2022). His photography book, Bound by Night, was published in 2014.
His filmmaking debut was a short, Walk for Me (2016), made during his studies at the Tisch School of the Arts film program at New York University. Bratton served as a producer on five short films, most made under the auspices of the film studies program at Tisch, between 2017 and 2018. Bratton was a writer/producer/director of the Viceland TV series about New York ball culture, My House (2018).
Bratton’s feature debut was the documentary, Pier Kids (2019), which was shot over a five-year period in 2011, 2012, and 2016, about Black homeless queer, and trans youth in New York City. Elegance Bratton was writer-director of the Marine boot camp drama, The Inspection, starring Jeremy Pope, Raul Castillo, McCaul Lombardi, Bokeem Woodbine, and Gabrielle Union, and premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.
Elegance Bratton was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and raised in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. When he informed his parents, he was kicked out of his family and lived on the streets as a homeless person until he signed up with the Marines.
He served as a combat camera specialist, mainly based at Camp Smith on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Bratton graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies and then earned his MFA in directing and writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Winner, Truer Than Fiction Award, Independent Spirit Awards (2021); Nominee, Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award, Gotham Awards (2022); Winner, Grand Jury Award--Best Short Film, L.A. Outfest (2018).
Truer Than Fiction Award
Film Independent Spirit Awards
Independent Spirit Award
Film Independent Spirit Awards
Previous (2)
Homeless Home: Manhattan’s Pier 45, the site where Elegance Bratton found a community among fellow young people when he was homeless, was the location of his first feature-length film, the 2019 documentary, Pier Kids.
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