Bronwen Hughes – Episode 292

Bronwen Hughes and Face2Face host David Peck talk about her new film The Journey is The Destination, Dan Eldon, the “global tribe”, living a life of “crowded hours”, and having no sense of the other.

IMDB

More about Dan Eldon here.

More about Creative Visions here.

Listen to my interview with Kathy Eldon, Dan’s mom.

Synopsis

The Journey is the Destination is based on the remarkable true story of the life of Dan Eldon, a photographer, artist, and adventurer.  By the age of 22, he had travelled to more than 40 countries, created fine art journals, worked with refugees, been hired as the youngest photojournalist at Reuters, fallen in love  — and accumulated more life experience than most in a lifetime.

Inspiring and irreverent, the film tell the story of a young man coming of age to realize his purpose, and his belief that we can all create positive change.

This film is 23 years in the making and we could not be more proud to have Kathy’s original dream become a reality.  This would not be possible without the phenomenal group of producers, the incredible director Bronwen Hughes, the cast, crew and everyone who has been part of this journey.  The journey continues…

Biography

Bronwen Hughes is a New York and Hollywood-based feature film director of Canadian and British origin.

She is currently at work on the feature film The Journey is the Destination, based on the life of artist and photographer, Dan Eldon. This epic adventure tells the story of Dan who spent his life traveling and photographing in 42 countries, inspiring young people to follow him. Like Dan, Hughes started photographing and traveling the globe from a very young age.

Hughes’ feature Stander is based on the true story of a notorious and brilliant bank robber in 1970’s Johannesburg. This charismatic criminal became a popular hero, often robbing 4 or 5 banks in a single day. Ultimately, he was apprehended and revealed to be the captain of the South African Police. Stander stars Thomas Jane (The Punisher, Boogie Nights) and Dexter Fletcher (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). The shoot took place in Johannesburg and the Townships of Soweto and Tembisa, where Hughes directed thousands of extras in a re-creation of the riots of the apartheid struggle.

Her previous feature, Forces of Nature, starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck, was made for Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks. It is a stylish and unique romantic comedy about two strangers thrown together on a wild ride battling the elements, both trying to make it to Savannah on a deadline. Noted for its special effects sequences of slow-motion hail storms and surreal hurricanes, Forces of Nature was the Number One film in the weeks of its National and International releases.

Hughes came to the attention of Spielberg who asked her to direct Forces of Nature after seeing her first feature film, Harriet the Spy, starring Rosie O’Donnell. Made for Paramount Pictures, Harriet was released to critical and box office success, and won international prizes.

She currently has several films in development: Romeo Spy, the true story of John Symonds, one-time London policemen who became an international seducer-of-women for the KGB in the 1970’s; Firecracker Boys for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, a truth-stranger-than-fiction story of Alaskan Eskimos exposing the nuclear conspiracy of the Atomic Energy Commission; The Dictator’s Lover, the true story of three generations of female spies; and Tropicana, a large-scale musical based on the legendary Havana nightclub.

Her production experience has taken her all over the world, from Iceland and Norway, to East and Southern Africa, to Central American Mayan ruins, and the remote peaks of the Andes. Her award-winning documentary for The Discovery Channel, Cinenova’s Machu Picchu: The Search for Lost Worlds was filmed in the jungles of inland Peru.

For television, Hughes’ prestigious pilots White Collar and Fairly Legal, both for USA Networks and Fox TV Studios, are now hit series for the network.

Hughes completed an action-packed episode of Breaking Bad, which has received Emmy’s for AMC, and several episodes of the HBO series Hung, starring Thomas Jane, who also starred in her feature film, Stander.