Apr 1, 2014
Festival
The San Francisco Film Society announced today that Stephen Gaghan will be the recipient of the 2014 Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting at the 57th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 24-May 8) honoring the acclaimed screenwriter’s multifaceted body of work. The award will be presented to Gaghan at Film Society Awards Night, Thursday May 1 at the Regency Center.
The Film Society and its year-round programs in exhibition, education and filmmaker services will be the beneficiary of the star-studded fundraiser honoring Gaghan.Richard Linklater, the previously announced recipient of the Founder’s Directing Award, John Lasseter; the recipient of the George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award; and the soon-to-be-announced recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award for excellence in acting will also be honored. Victoria Raiser and Todd Traina are co-chairs of this year’s Film Society Awards Night gala.
“Stephen Gaghan is one of our most well-respected screenwriters,” said San Francisco Film Society Executive Director Noah Cowan. “His unique ability to blend the personal with the political to create compelling drama makes him a rare talent, and a worthy recipient of this year’s Kanbar Award.”
Gaghan will also be honored at An Afternoon with Stephen Gaghan at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Saturday May 3, 12:30 pm. An onstage interview and a selection of clips from his notable screenwriting career will be followed by a screening of Syriana (USA 2005, 128 min). Everything is connected in writer/director Stephen Gaghan’s politically-charged story of power and corruption. A missile’s disappearance, a Saudi oil contract and the death of an economist’s son all intersect with unpredictably thrilling and tragic results. CIA agent Bob Barnes (George Clooney, in his Academy Award-winning role) leads the quest to put the pieces together in this modern American classic.
Stephen Gaghan’s feature scripts include Traffic (2000), for which he won an Acadamy Award, Golden Globe, Writer’s Guild of America Award and British Academy Award. His script for Syriana, which he also directed, received another Academy Award nomination and won the Nation Board of Review award for Best Adapted Screenplay and garned the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for George Clooney. Currently Gaghan has many writing, directing and producing projects in development, including a feature film at Warner Brothers and a miniseries at FX. His next feature, Candy Store, which Gaghan cowrote and will direct, is set to go into production this summer.
The Kanbar Award is named in honor of Maurice Kanbar, a longtime member of the board of directors of the Film Society, film commissioner and philanthropist with a particular interest in supporting independent filmmakers. Kanbar is the creator of New York’s first multiplex theater and, most recently, Blue Angel Vodka.
Previous recipients of the Kanbar Award are Eric Roth (2013), David Webb Peoples (2012), Frank Pierson (2011), James Schamus (2010), James Toback (2009), Robert Towne (2008), Peter Morgan (2007), Jean-Claude Carrière (2006) and Paul Haggis (2005).
For more information or tickets to Film Society Awards Night call 415-561-5028 or email specialevents@sffs.org.
Tickets to An Afternoon with Stephen Gaghan are $15 for SFFS members, $20 for the general public. Box office is now open online for SFFS members, April 4 for the general public, at festival.sffs.org.
For more information visit festival.sffs.org.
To request interviews contact your SFIFF publicist.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.
57th San Francisco International Film Festival
The 57th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 24-May 8 at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Castro Theatre and New People Cinema in San Francisco and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. Held each spring for 15 days, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in one of the country’s most beautiful cities, featuring 200 films and live events, 14 juried awards and nearly $40,000 in cash prizes, upwards of 100 participating filmmaker guests and diverse and engaged audiences with more than 65,000 in attendance.