CHRISTINE VACHON TO DELIVER STATE OF CINEMA ADDRESS AT 54TH SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Acclaimed Producer and Author to Reflect on

Independent Cinema and Its Continuing Evolution

San Francisco, CA - The San Francisco Film Society announced today that acclaimed producer of independent cinema Christine Vachon will deliver the annual State of Cinema Address at the 54th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21-May 5) at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas on Sunday, April 24 at 9:00 pm. Vachon will speak on the current state of independent film and the role of producers of provocative cinema going forward. 

"We are incredibly excited to have Christine Vachon deliver the State of Cinema Address at the Festival this year," said Rachel Rosen, director of programming of the San Francisco Film Society. "A major force in the independent film industry, her work throughout her career has managed to stay both timely and innovative. She is someone who is in an ideal position to tell us how the business has changed and where she sees it going in the future."

A producer for the past 25 years, Vachon has been at the forefront of the independent film movement, championing risky, emotionally demanding work from unknown filmmakers and never shying away from edgy material. Her films, such as Kids, Happiness and the Academy Award­­­­-winning Boys Don't Cry, have made headlines both for their critical acclaim and for their realistic and at times controversial depictions of sex, drug use and LGBT content. 

Vachon has also enjoyed a long creative partnership with acclaimed filmmaker Todd Haynes. The two became friends while students at Brown University in the early 1980s. Since then she has produced each of his films, including the Academy Award-nominated The Velvet Goldmine and Far from Heaven, as well as Poison, Vachon's first feature production, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival and the upcoming HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce.     

In 1996, Vachon, along with Pamela Koffler, cofounded Killer Films, a production company under whose banner she has produced some of the most acclaimed independent films of the past 15 years, such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch and I Shot Andy Warhol. Through Killer Films Vachon has also produced the TV version of This American Life, for which she won an Emmy. She has also written two books on her life and career, Shooting to Kill and A Killer Life.

Despite her success, Vachon remains committed to the world of risk-taking, independent cinema. "It's the world in which I've toiled for . . . years, working for little money on the kinds of movies that seldom end up at the local multiplex," wrote Vachon in Shooting to Kill. "And unless someone gives me $40 million to make a picture about bisexual rockers, or a sympathetic pedophile, or a woman who wakes up one day and realizes that society is slowly poisoning her to death, it's the world in which I'll stay."   

Each year, the Film Society invites a well-known public figure to talk about the intersecting worlds of contemporary cinema and visual arts, culture and society, images and ideas. Previous State of Cinema speakers have been film editor Walter Murch, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, Wired publisher Kevin Kelly, actress Tilda Swinton, writer/director Brad Bird, cultural commentator B. Ruby Rich and longtime editor of the influential French film magazine Positif Michel Ciment. 

Tickets are $15 for San Francisco Film Society members and $20 for the general public. For tickets and information visit sffs.org/tickets. Tickets go on sale March 15 for members and March 30 for the general public.

The State of Cinema Address is presented with support from Luna.