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Filmmaker to discuss her work, March 1
Posted February 23, 2006; 10:41 p.m.
Christine Vachon, founder of and partner in Killer Films, will
discuss her work at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 1, in the Stewart Film
Theater, 185 Nassau St.
The independent company has produced more than 30 films, including "Far
From Heaven," "Boys Don't Cry," "Kids," "One Hour Photo" and
"Happiness."
The lecture will be preceded by a screening of "Boys Don't Cry" by
Kimberly Peirce at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26, in the Stewart Film
Theater.
For more than a decade, Killer Films has produced films for directors
as diverse as Todd Haynes, Kimberly Peirce, Todd Solondz, Robert
Altman, Mary Harron, Larry Clark and John Waters. The company's movies
have been nominated for seven Academy Awards, most famously when Hilary
Swank won the Best Actress Oscar in 1999 for "Boys Don't Cry." This
fall, the Museum of Modern Art marked the 10th anniversary of the
company -- now headed by Vachon, Pamela Koffler and Katie Roumel --
with a retrospective.
Killer's history began in 1991, when Vachon produced Haynes' first
feature, "Poison." The film won the grand jury prize at the Sundance
Film Festival and was thrust into the limelight when Sen. Jesse Helms
and the far right protested the National Endowment for the Arts'
involvement in the film. Over the years, the New York-based company has
continued its commitment to produce visionary films without shrinking
from controversy.
When Killer was officially founded in 1995, it took its name from
artist Cindy Sherman’s debut feature, the slasher film send-up "Office
Killer." Other company highlights include Solondz’s seminal portrait of
dysfunction in suburban America, "Happiness"; John Cameron Mitchell’s
gender-bending rock odyssey, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"; Haynes'
homage to 1950 melodrama, "Far From Heaven," featuring actress Julianne
Moore, which was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2002; and the
company's biggest financial success, Mark Romanek's "One Hour Photo,"
starring Robin Williams.
2006 will see the release of three new Killer films. "Mrs. Harris,"
based on the true-life Scarsdale diet doctor murder, stars Annette
Bening and Ben Kingsley and is directed by Phyllis Nagy. Mary Harron
reteams with Killer on "The Notorious Bettie Page," a look into the
life of the '50s pin-up icon starring Gretchen Mol. In "Infamous,"
director Douglas McGrath explores Truman Capote's relationship with
convicted killer Perry Smith as he writes his groundbreaking nonfiction
novel, "In Cold Blood." British theater favorite Toby Jones leads a
cast including Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, Sigourney Weaver, Jeff
Daniels, Hope Davis, Isabella Rossellini and Gwyneth Paltrow.
In the pipeline at Killer for future release are Haynes' new film
concerning Bob Dylan, "I'm Not There," which will star Christian Bale,
Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell, Richard Gere, Charlotte Gainsbourg and
Julianne Moore; an adaptation of Brad Land’s memoir "Goat," which David
Gordon Green has written and will direct; and "Kimberly Akimbo," based
on the hit off-Broadway play by David Lindsay-Abaire.
In addition to earning Academy Award nominations, Vachon, her company
and its films have received numerous other honors including Independent
Spirit Awards, top prizes from the Sundance, Venice, Cannes and Berlin
film festivals, special tributes from the Deauville, SXSW and
Provincetown film festivals, the producer award from the National Board
of Review and the Independent Feature Project Gotham Award for producer
of the year.
Vachon's book, "Shooting to Kill: How an Independent Producer Blasts
Through the Barriers to Make Movies That Matter," was published by Avon
in the fall 1998 and was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. Her second
book, "A Killer Life: How An Independent Producer Survives Deals and
Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond," will be published in fall 2006 by
Simon and Schuster.
The event, slated as the John Sacret Young '69 Lecture, is being organized by the Program in Visual Arts.