Bruce Pittman

Directing

Bruce Pittman

Born

1950-02-04 (76)

Place of birth

Toronto, Canada

Known for

Directing

Credits

20 titles

Bruce Pittman (born February 4, 1950) is a Canadian television and film director best known for directing the 1987 slasher Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II.[1] He also directed the 1989 film Where the Spirit Lives, which won the Gemini Award for Best TV movie and numerous international awards. He is a member of the Directors Guild of Canada[2] and the Directors Guild of America. Early life and career Born in Toronto, Ontario, on February 4, 1950. Pittman attended Park Lawn Public School, Royal York Collegiate and Kipling Collegiate in Etobicoke.[3] In 1966, he made his first student film, which received an Honorable Mention at the Kodak Student Film Festival in Rochester, New York.[3] That…

Known for

The Secret Path poster
7.5

14-year-old Jo Ann Foley lives in squalor in a rural Southern community during World War II. Abused by her bootlegging grandfather Hank, Jo Ann has, like her mother Marie, been forced into a life of prostitution. Periodically escaping her miserable existence, Jo Ann finds comfort, security, and genuine love with a poor but proud African American couple: Honey and Too Tall.

The Secret Path

1999

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II poster
6.1

When Hamilton High’s Prom Queen of 1957, Mary Lou Maloney, is killed by her jilted boyfriend, she comes back for revenge thirty years later.

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II

1987

Alien Tracker poster
4.0

In a galaxy far away, alien criminals organize a spectacular prison break. Pursued by their home planet's authorities, their leader Zin decides there's only one place to go: through a wormhole that allows instantaneous travel to Earth. Cole is the Alien Tracker who's in hot pursuit of the escaped convicts.

Alien Tracker

2003

Captive Heart: The James Mink Story poster
5.1

James Mink is a black man in Canada who has built a very successful livery business, and enjoys a white wife and a beautiful daughter, Mary. An excellent match is arranged with an American businessman, but when he takes his new wife Mary across the border his true character emerges - he sells her into slavery. James and Elizabeth must go to Virginia to rescue their daughter.

Captive Heart: The James Mink Story

1996

Where the Spirit Lives poster
6.2

In 1937, a young First Nations girl named Ashtecome is kidnapped along with several other children from a village as part of a deliberate Canadian policy to force First Nations children to abandon their culture in order to be assimilated into white Canadian/British society. Taken to a boarding school where she's forced to adopt Western Euro-centric ways and learn English, often under brutal treatment, she has the support of one sympathetic white teacher.

Where the Spirit Lives

1990

To Brave Alaska poster
5.4

True story of a yuppie couple's Alaskan trip turning into a wilderness survival struggle.

To Brave Alaska

1996

Behind the camera

The Secret Path poster
7.5

14-year-old Jo Ann Foley lives in squalor in a rural Southern community during World War II. Abused by her bootlegging grandfather Hank, Jo Ann has, like her mother Marie, been forced into a life of prostitution. Periodically escaping her miserable existence, Jo Ann finds comfort, security, and genuine love with a poor but proud African American couple: Honey and Too Tall.

The Secret Path

1999

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II poster
6.1

When Hamilton High’s Prom Queen of 1957, Mary Lou Maloney, is killed by her jilted boyfriend, she comes back for revenge thirty years later.

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II

1987

Alien Tracker poster
4.0

In a galaxy far away, alien criminals organize a spectacular prison break. Pursued by their home planet's authorities, their leader Zin decides there's only one place to go: through a wormhole that allows instantaneous travel to Earth. Cole is the Alien Tracker who's in hot pursuit of the escaped convicts.

Alien Tracker

2003

Captive Heart: The James Mink Story poster
5.1

James Mink is a black man in Canada who has built a very successful livery business, and enjoys a white wife and a beautiful daughter, Mary. An excellent match is arranged with an American businessman, but when he takes his new wife Mary across the border his true character emerges - he sells her into slavery. James and Elizabeth must go to Virginia to rescue their daughter.

Captive Heart: The James Mink Story

1996

Where the Spirit Lives poster
6.2

In 1937, a young First Nations girl named Ashtecome is kidnapped along with several other children from a village as part of a deliberate Canadian policy to force First Nations children to abandon their culture in order to be assimilated into white Canadian/British society. Taken to a boarding school where she's forced to adopt Western Euro-centric ways and learn English, often under brutal treatment, she has the support of one sympathetic white teacher.

Where the Spirit Lives

1990

To Brave Alaska poster
5.4

True story of a yuppie couple's Alaskan trip turning into a wilderness survival struggle.

To Brave Alaska

1996

Harrison Bergeron poster
6.8

"All men are not created equal. It is the purpose of the Government to make them so." This is the premise of the Showtime film adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's futuristic short story Harrison Bergeron. The film centers around a young man (Harrison) who is smarter than his peers, and is not affected by the usual "Handicapping" which is used to train all Americans so everyone is of equal intelligence.

Harrison Bergeron

1995

To Dance with Olivia poster
8.0

A lawyer trying to cope with his son's accidental death takes on a case where a farmer is charged with booby trapping a watermelon patch with a shotgun which went off and injured a young boy. But in choosing to defend the farmer, he puts himself at odds with the boy's father, an old friend who is politically influential. In dealing with this case, he is forced to confront his own son's death and his wife's slippage into being a virtual recluse.

To Dance with Olivia

1997

Flood: A River's Rampage poster
5.3

After heavy rain, the Mississippi is breaking it's banks flooding small towns. Richard Thomas and Kate Vernon realise their town is next on the hit list. Lots and lots of sand bags might not do the trick but a huge explosion might. In the meantime the plot is filled up with a predictable story about a family dreading their mistake of staying behind when they become entrapped in their own home.

Flood: A River's Rampage

1997

Stolen from the Heart poster
7.0

A former prostitute kidnaps a baby boy at birth to satisfy her drug-dealing husband, who has told her that he is going to divorce her and put her out on the streets if she cannot produce him a son. Obviously the real mother becomes emotionally wrought and determined to get her baby back. Barbara Mandrell gets thrown into all of this mess as the mother's mother, who just happens to be beset with heart problems.

Stolen from the Heart

2000

No Alibi poster
3.1

Bob Lessing is a successful businessman who becomes amorously entangled with a dangerous and mysterious woman. What Lessing doesn't realize is that she has been sent by her powerful criminal boyfriend Vic Haddock to collect a large sum of drug money owed to him by Bob's murdered brother.

No Alibi

2000

Locked in Silence poster
6.1

A story of a young boy who becomes an elective mute after witnessing what he believes to be the killing by his older brother of a teenage boy. The young boy's brother then tells him not to say anything because of the trouble it would cause in the family... so he doesn't say anything again. The problem is that the young boy so enjoys his acceptance by others of his mutism that it brings his family, a loving and caring farm family, to the brink of financial ruin in medical and psychological costs to cure him. Based on a true story, this is the intelligent telling of a family in crisis, and the work of doctors in dealing with this mental illness.

Locked in Silence

1999

Confidential poster
3.3

The year is 1949 and reporter Hugh Jameson is looking for a story. He focuses on Emma Porter, a woman who was accused of the axe murder of her father thirty seven years earlier. Jameson disappears during his search and his wife hires Charles Ripley P.I. to find him. Ripley's search leads him to Emma's son who has his own nasty secrets to protect.

Confidential

1986

Confidential poster
3.3

The year is 1949 and reporter Hugh Jameson is looking for a story. He focuses on Emma Porter, a woman who was accused of the axe murder of her father thirty seven years earlier. Jameson disappears during his search and his wife hires Charles Ripley P.I. to find him. Ripley's search leads him to Emma's son who has his own nasty secrets to protect.

Confidential

1986

The Last Movie poster
6.0

Madness turns the making of a noir thriller into a variation on the same genre.

The Last Movie

2012

The Painted Door poster
4.3

The Painted Door is a Canadian short drama film, directed by Bruce Pittman and released in 1984. Based on a short story by Sinclair Ross, the film was produced by the National Film Board of Canada and Atlantis Films of Toronto. It follows a housewife who struggles with loneliness after her husband ventures into a blizzard. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film.

The Painted Door

1984

Mark of Cain poster
5.3

A couple live in an old, isolated mansion. The husband's murderous, insane twin escapes from a lunatic asylum. The cops haul off the wrong twin and the wife is stuck with the killer.

Mark of Cain

1986

Blood Brothers poster
8.3

Blood Brothers- While coming of age in the inner city, Darryl Crawford, a young African-American man, witnesses a gang-related murder and is horrified to discover that his beloved older brother Sly is one of the perps. Darryl grapples with his conscience over informing on Sly -- but this fear becomes secondary when the remaining gang members close in on both brothers and threaten their lives.

Blood Brothers

1994

Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion poster
5.8

A true story about the tragic explosion at Halifax Harbour, Canada, in the early hours of December 6, 1917.

Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion

2003

The Olden Days Coat poster
9.0

While at her grandmother's house, a ten-year-old girl finds a coat in the closet. As she inspects it, she is suddenly taken back in time.

The Olden Days Coat

1981