Brad Heck

Brad Heck is a co-founder of Haptic Pictures with Willow O'Feral. Together, they have co-directed the short documentary Artifacts of the Present, and also the feature documentary Sisters Rising, a documentary about Native American women restoring personal and tribal sovereignty in the face of ongoing sexual and colonial violence against Indigenous women in the US. Sisters Rising is broadcast nationally on PBS America ReFramed/WORLD CHANNEL, and has won a slew of honors including: Best Film Award from Women's Voices Now Film Festival, Best Documentary Feature at the 2020 American Indian Film Festival, 2020 Honorable Mention Big Sky Award, a 2022 Silver Telly Award for social impact, Thaddeus Stevens Award at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, a Media for Just Society Award 2022, and inclusion in Video Librarian's Best Documentaries of the Year and the American Library Association Notable Films For Adults 2022. Brad also co-produced Willow O’Feral’s feature documentary Break the Silence: Reproductive & Sexual Health Stories, which was awarded Best Documentary Feature at La Frontera Queer Film Festival and the Choice Champion Award from Planned Parenthood.

Previously in his career, Brad worked as a cinematographer on commercial and independent projects and feature films. Brad was awarded a regional Emmy for his cinematography work for BRIC Media in NY, and is a recipient of the Thriving Communities Grant from the Community Engagement Lab. In his educational career, Brad has taught film at Marlboro College, formerly directed the MFA in Film Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is now teaching film production at Central Connecticut State University. Brad hails from Chicago and now lives in Vermont.