Documentarist and award-winning filmmaker Tony Buba (https://braddockfilms.com/) recently announced the release of his collected works, a retrospective gathering of 50 years of filmmaking, much of it chronicling the slow industrial decline of his hometown of Braddock.
Replete with the dark humor that personifies Buba’s documentary style, the two-disc collection brings together dozens of restored film greats, beginning with Buba’s 1970’s shorts, working through the productions of the 1980s and culminating in Buba’s feature-length masterpiece: “Lightning Over Braddock: A Rust Bowl Fantasy (1988).” The two-disc set is available for purchase directly from the distributor, as well as from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
About Tony Buba and Braddock Films Inc.
Tony Buba holds an M.F.A. from Ohio University and has been producing both long and short-form documentaries since 1972. Buba began working on major feature films early in his career, with production roles on George Romero’s “Martin” and “Dawn of the Dead.” He primarily worked behind the scenes on Romero’s famous zombie film, but Buba also appears as an actor: a featured motorcycle raider who gets his arm torn off at a blood pressure machine. Buba also has a cameo in the Sundance hit, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.”
Although Buba has created and produced dozens of films, shorts and music videos for five decades – under the umbrella of Braddock Films, incorporated in 1992 – his best-known work is set in and around the Pittsburgh area and his hometown of Braddock. Affectionately known by many of his colleagues as The Bard of Braddock, Buba often chronicles the decay of the once booming steel town in multiple hard-hitting documentaries.
Buba’s films have gone on to be screened at Sundance, Toronto, Berlin and other major international film festivals, and have been showcased as a one-person exhibition at more than 100 universities and museums, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Buba’s work has been featured on NPR, and he has received fellowships from the N.E.A, A.F.I, the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, as well as grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
Starred Reviews of Buba’s Work
“The centerpiece of the retrospective, and perhaps Mr. Buba’s oeuvre, is ‘Lightning Over Braddock: A Rust Belt Fantasy’ … The self-reflexive nature of Mr. Buba’s work, its political savvy and technical sophistication … make Mr. Buba ripe for rediscovery, as does the prescience of his movies: the foreshadowing of the Occupy and Tea Party movements seem unmistakable in ‘Lightning Over Braddock’….” –John Anderson, New York Times
“A Triumph” … “One of the few regional movies to successfully and unsentimentally peel off the national smile button” –J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Buba is currently working on two new documentaries: “Two Women From Tursi,” an immigration tale; and “Thunder Over Braddock,” the sequel to his hit film “Lightning Over Braddock.” For a complete annotated filmography of Buba’s work, please visit HERE.
