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Patrick Bresnan

Patrick Bresnan

Directing

Biography

Patrick Bresnan is a visual artist and filmmaker. After a formative period working for prominent Mission School artists Barry McGee (aka Twist) and Clare Rojas, he co-directed the short documentary The Send-Off (2016) with his partner Ivete Lucas. His short, The Rabbit Hunt, world-premiered at Sundance in 2017 before competing at the Berlinale, and has won over 20 awards including The Cinema Eye Honor. In 2017, he and Lucas directed the short Roadside Attraction which premiered at TIFF.

Known For

Naked Gardens
N/A

A visually stunning narrative documentary, NAKED GARDENS immerses audiences in the complex, unseen world of a family nudist resort in the Florida Everglades. Filmed over one season at this lush tropical campsite, the film follows the stories of individuals drawn to an unusual community, which promises both non-conformist values and, more importantly for some, a cheap place to live. As aging owner Morley and his residents prepare for the largest gathering of nudists in the US, the Mid-Winter Naturist Festival, they are faced with challenges both as a community and as individuals.

Naked Gardens

2024
Boys State
7.1

This raucous journey into the heart of democracy captures an unusual rite of passage: 1,100 teenage boys from across Texas coming together to build a representative government from the ground up.

Boys State

2020
First They Came for My College
N/A

When the Governor of Florida transforms a beloved public honors college in a political coup, students and professors confront a new reality: their campus is ground zero in a growing nation-wide assault on academic freedom.

First They Came for My College

2026
The Rabbit Hunt
6.8

Every weekend, seventeen year old Chris and his family hunt rabbits during sugarcane field burning and harvesting in the Florida Everglades. The film records a tradition by which migrant farm workers in the communities surrounding Lake Okeechobee have been hunting and preparing rabbits since the early 1900s.

The Rabbit Hunt

2017
The Curse and the Jubilee
N/A

An intimate, arresting portrait of the cursed Appalachian mining town of Ivanhoe, Virginia. The film captures the town as it prepares for the annual Jubilee, a wild 4th of July celebration where families and neighbors let loose and triumph over daily hardships, industrial abandonment, and race.

The Curse and the Jubilee

2018
Pahokee
6.0

In a small agricultural town in the Florida Everglades, hopes for the future are concentrated on the youth. Four teens face heartbreak and celebrate in the rituals of an extraordinary senior year.

Pahokee

2019
The Passing
N/A

A Texas house call veterinarian must guide his neighbor Cindy through one of the most difficult days of her life.

The Passing

2023
Skip Day
5.1

For seniors in Pahokee, a small, mainly African-American industrial town on Florida's Lake Okeechoboee, the Monday after prom is 'Skip Day.' Dozens of the students, miss their lessons, driving 60 miles to hang out and ponder their futures on the windy dunes of the Atlantic shoreline. The film intimately observes the shared joys of communal activity and extravagant display which bind these boisterous teenagers in their rites of passage towards an uncertain adulthood.

Skip Day

2018
Roadside Attraction
4.7

After a very famous airplane arrives at Palm Beach International Airport, an otherwise ordinary stretch of Florida highway attracts an avid cluster of excited onlookers and selfie-takers. In the ensuing spectacle, these curious Americans reveal the qualities they may share with the plane’s huuuge-ly notable passenger.

Roadside Attraction

2017
Happiness Is a Journey
5.0

A glimpse into the real lives of warehouse workers on the desolate streets of Austin, Texas, in this dual-screen documentary.

Happiness Is a Journey

2021
No image
5.0

Emboldened by a giant block party on the evening of their high school prom, a group of students enter the night with the hope of transcending their rural town and the industrial landscape that surrounds them.

The Send-Off

2015