Jean-Claude Carrière to Receive Kanbar Award at
49th San Francisco International Film Festival

Carrière to be Recognized for Excellence in Screenwriting

March 28, 2006

San Francisco, CA—The San Francisco Film Society announced today that Jean-Claude Carrière will be the recipient of the Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting to be presented at the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20–May 4). The award, which will be presented to Carrière at Film Society Awards Night on Thursday, April 27 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, acknowledges the crucial role that screenwriting plays in the creation of great films.

The Kanbar Award is named in honor of Maurice Kanbar, a longtime member of the board of directors of the San Francisco Film Society, a San Francisco film commissioner and a philanthropist with a particular interest in supporting independent filmmakers. Kanbar is the creator of New York’s first multiplex theater and the inventor and founder of San Francisco-based SKYY Spirits.

In addition to being honored at Film Society Awards Night, Carrière will appear at the Kabuki 8 Theatres, Saturday, April 29 for an onstage interview with film critic David D’Arcy prior to a screening of Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour, starring French film siren Catherine Deneuve. He will also introduce a second screening of the film at the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley on Sunday, April 30, which will be followed by a Q&A.

On May 5 and 6, the Pacific Film Archive presents four more of Carrière’s collaborations with Buñuel, including Diary of a Chambermaid, The Milky Way, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Phantom of Liberty.

Graham Leggat, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, announced Carrière’s upcoming appearance at the 49th Festival saying, “Very few writers working in film today, and in fact very few in the history of cinema, can match the exceptional career of Jean-Claude Carrière. Beginning with the groundbreaking films he scripted for the legendary Luis Buñuel, Carrière has for more than 50 years crafted spellbinding, moving and unsettling characters, scenes and stories, and continues to do so to the present day, with the much-anticipated Goya’s Ghosts. We are honored to be able to present this master storyteller with this year’s Kanbar Award, which honors the world’s finest screenwriters and their memorable talents.”

Carrière was born in 1931 in the south of France to a family of farmers. A self-described “country boy,” his world was transformed at the age of nine as he found himself thrust into civilization after winning a scholarship to a Catholic school in Paris. By age 12, he had already written and illustrated a novel and written his first play based on a classical tragedy. While studying for his doctorate in history and geography, he worked as a newspaper cartoonist and, under a pen name, wrote low-budget horror books to make ends meet. His cinema education began in an editing room after being introduced to a film editor while writing novelizations of films by Jacques Tati. His first feature-length screenplay, The Suitor, a remake of the Buster Keaton silent film Silent Chances, hit screens in 1962. With over 100 films and television credits to his name, Carrière long ago cemented his status as one of the most celebrated screenwriters of his time.

With a résumé spanning over four decades of critical acclaim, it’s no surprise the world’s most famous directors seek out Carrière’s award-winning work. In 1972 he was nominated for both a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award and a Writers Guild Award for Milos Forman’s Taking Off. One year later his work on The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie took home the BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay (shared with writer/director Luis Buñuel) and was also nominated for an Academy Award. In 1978 the duo were honored again for That Obscure Object of Desire with a nomination for France’s César Award and an Academy Award nomination. In 1983 Carrière was honored at the César Awards with the Best Writing Award for The Return of Martin Guerre and a nomination forDanton. In 1989, Philip Kaufman’s film The Unbearable Lightness of Being earned a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, an Academy Award nomination and a WGA Award nomination.  Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s Cyrano de Bergerac brought two nominations for Carrière: a BAFTA and a César Award. In 2000, the Writers Guild of America honored Carrière with the Laurel Award for Screen Writing Achievement.

Carrière’s select filmography includes Viva Maria starring Brigitte Bardot, directed by Louis Malle; Jacques Deray’s A Few Hours of Sunlight, in which Carrière also starred; The Woman with the Red Boots, directed by Juan Luis Buñuel, starring Deneuve; Every Man for Himself, starring Isabelle Huppert, directed by Jean-Luc Godard; Volker Schlöndorff’s Swann in Love, starring Jeremy Irons; Valmont, directed by Milos Forman, starring Colin Firth and Annette Benning; At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Hector Babenco’s film starring a magnificent cast including Tom Berenger, John Lithgow, Daryl Hannah and Kathy Bates; Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s The Horseman on the Roof, starring the beautiful Juliette Binoche and Olivier Martinez; The Ogre, starring an unforgettable John Malkovich, directed by Schlöndorff;Wayne Wang’s Chinese Box, starring Irons, Gong Li and Maggie Cheung;and Jonathan Glazer’s controversial Birth, starring Nicole Kidman.

Carrière’s latest project, Goya’s Ghosts, a blistering look at the Inquisition starring Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem and Stellan Starsgård, is his third collaboration with writer/director Milos Forman. The much-anticipated film, produced by San Francisco’s Saul Zaentz, is inspired by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya and is scheduled for a fall release.

The Film Society’s Education Program will be the beneficiary of the gala black-tie fundraiser honoring Carrière, Werner Herzog, recipient of the Film Society Directing Award and Ed Harris, recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award. Karen and John Diefenbach are the chairs of the Film Society Awards Night committee. Honorary chair is William R. Hearst III.

The recipient of the inaugural Kanbar Award, established in 2005, was writer/director/producer Paul Haggis. The Kanbar Award is made possible by SKYY Spirits. SKYY maintains an active role in the community by supporting the creation of original content and working with filmmakers to bring their creative visions to life while inspiring excellence and vision in cinema.

Piper Heidsieck is the Official Champagne of Film Society Awards Night.

For Film Society Awards Night tickets and information only, call 415.551.5190.

Founded in 1957, the vanguard San Francisco International Film Festival is the longest-running film festival in the Americas. Held each spring for two weeks, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country’s most beautiful city, featuring some 200 films and live events with more than 100 filmmakers in attendance, presenting some 22 awards and attracting a diverse audience of nearly 80,000 people.

The 49th International runs April 20–May 4, 2006 at the Kabuki 8 Theatres, the Castro Theatre and the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco; the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley; and Landmark’s Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto, as well as several smaller venues. To purchase tickets and for ticket information log on to www.sffs.org, call 925.866.9559 or visit the Main Ticket Outlet at the Kabuki 8 Theatres (1881 Post Street) or the Satellite Ticket Outlet at Virgin Megastore (2 Stockton Street). For additional information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415.561.5000.

San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the flagship SFIFF, is a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating the world of film and media in all its glorious forms. In early 2006 the Film Society unveiled SF360, a broad-spectrum series of initiatives designed to showcase the extraordinary vitality, variety and innovation of the San Francisco Bay Area film and media scene, including www.sf360.org, SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, SF360 InSchool Cinemas and the SF360 Festival of Festivals.

The Film Society will present the first annual San Francisco International Animation Festival from October 11–15, 2006 and a new SF International Youth Media Festival in 2007.

First to 50: SFIFF will hold its landmark 50th anniversary in April 2007.