Brian's first short film Counting Water - produced for $17 - has been screened at over 15 film festivals across the globe, from Los Angeles to New York, Lisbon to Paris. It was screened at the Slamdance Film Festival, won a Special Jury Award for Best Animated Short at the Atlanta Film Festival, and played at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Counting Water was also chosen as one of The Daily Reel’s Top Ten Must Watch Shorts and was broadcast on PBS this spring. Both Devendra Banhart and Philip Glass contributed music to the piece.
Last May, Brian produced an outdoor video art installation for David Bowie's High Line Festival. And just last month, his video for Band Of Horses' Is There A Ghost was nominated for 2 MVPA Awards. The clip was previously featured in SPIN Magazine's Best Of 2007 issue.
Brian’s background is actually in theater where he has worked both on Broadway and Off. He was Associate Producer of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald and Sanaa Lathan. The production won two Tony Awards, broke box office records, and was widely recognized for the incredibly young and diverse audience it brought to the theater.
Brian was also Associate Producer of The Public Theater’s 50th Anniversary, which featured performances by Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Zach Braff, Eartha Kitt, Ben Stiller, and Mike Nichols, among many, many others. The show was directed by Broadway icon James Lapine.
At the age of 21, Brian adapted and staged a version of Margeurite Duras’ novel, La Maladie de la Mort. A year later he co-wrote an off-beat musical with Glenn Kessler, All the Kings’ Men, which was called “exhilaratingly innovative” by Show Business Weekly, and named their pick for “Best Off-Off Broadway Play.” Kings was based on the brutal real-life murder of Terry King by his 12 and 13 year-old sons.
Brian studied writing and directing at the Samuel Beckett Centre in Dublin, Ireland, and was one of very few young artists selected to work with the award-winning legendary playwright Maria Irene Fornes. He has attended Cornell University and holds a B.F.A. from NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.