- Q. Allan Brocka
Quenton Allan Brocka is an award-winning American entertainment figure based in
West Hollywood, California . He has directed and written a number of feature films while creating ananimated television series for the Logo cable network. He also writes a column forThe Advocate . Brocka is of Filipino heritage and an out gay man.Biography
Brocka was born and spent his childhood in
Guam . His family moved to the mainland United States, settling inParkland, Washington where he attended Washington High School. He earned a degree in communications from theUniversity of Washington in Seattle and went on to get a masters in film from theCalifornia Institute of the Arts .His uncle is
Lino Brocka , a famousLGBT film director in thePhilippines . His mother didn't know Lino, except to say he was in the film industry. His father didn't know his brother well and the family never went to the Philippines so Allan never got to meet him or find out much about him.Filmography and awards
It was in Guam where Brocka first discovered
film . At the age of eight he discovered it was fun to create simple slide shows from photographs with a soundtrack. At age nine his mother, a saleswoman forPanasonic , brought home avideo camera and Brocka began creating short films andsketch comedy . He found an early fascination withscience fiction but after seeing theRocky Horror Picture Show and some John Waters films as a teen he realized sexuality was a legitimate subject.In 1999 the first of Brocka's films seen by the public was the animated short ; an irreverent story of a lesbian couple and gay couple who dislike each other, but decide to have a baby together. The short was done as a school project that Brocka then submitted to
Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation . It went on to show and win awards at seven different film festivals.Brocka went on to create another short, "Roberta Loved", a story of a morbidly obese woman who is fired from her job and learns she will die. "Roberta Loved" won another set of awards, and Brocka learned that his audience was willing to be disturbed by his subject matter, whether through humor (as in "Rick and Steve") or drama (as in "Roberta Loved" and "Seventy").
His next works were iconic documentaries of
popular culture , "Porno Valley ", a reality show featuringpornographic actresses fromVivid Entertainment and "Camp Michael Jackson" about the encampment of fans and media outside the court trial of pop-music starMichael Jackson .Brocka was approached by
Ariztical Entertainment to create low budget gay romances and he agreed, but then insisted on making interesting casting choices and writing that was more than just throw-away entertainment. For the first film,Eating Out , Brocka reached out toAmerican Idol contestantJim Verraros , who had never previously acted, as a co-star. It went on to win several awards, including 2004 Best Feature at the San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.His latest picture,
Boy Culture has won more than a dozen awards atfilm festivals around the world, including Best Writing at the 2006Outfest and Best Feature Film atFestival del Mar inSpain .The Logo cable network has revived the animated "Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple In All The World" and will air a season of new episodes starting in the summer of 2007.
External links
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0110654/ Q. Allan Brocka at the Internet Movie Database]
* [http://www.poshpictures.com Q. Allan Brocka's latest projects]
*myspace|brocka
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