Joan Allen to Receive Peter J. Owens Award At 48th San Francisco International Film Festival; Actor to be Saluted for Brilliance, Independence and Integrity

The San Francisco Film Society announced today that Joan Allen will be the recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award to be presented at the 48th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21-May 5, 2005). The Owens Award, named after local cultural benefactor and longtime Film Society board member Peter J. Owens, honors an actor whose work exemplifies brilliance, independence and integrity. The award will be presented to Allen at Film Society Awards Night on Thursday, April 28, 2005 at the Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco.

The Film Society will be the beneficiary of the gala black-tie fundraiser honoring Allen and the yet-to-be-announced recipient of the Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing. Margaret and William R. Hearst III are the chairs of the Film Society Awards Night committee. Honorary chairs are Pat and Susie McBaine. On Friday, April 29, in conjunction with the Peter J. Owens Award, there will be a tribute to Allen at the Castro Theatre featuring retrospective film clips and an onstage interview prior to a screening of Sally Potter’s powerful new film, YES.

Roxanne Messina Captor, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, announced Allen’s upcoming appearance at the 48th Festival saying, “The San Francisco Film Society is honored to present the Peter J. Owens Award for a brilliant and independent career to Joan Allen, one of today’s most compelling actors. Audiences who were riveted by her dead-on performance as straight-laced Pat Nixon in Oliver Stone’s NIXON will be thrilled by her daring sensuality in Sally Potter’s YES.” Sony Pictures Classics will open YES on June 24.

Joan Allen was born in Rochelle, Indiana and studied at Eastern Illinois University—where she became friends with fellow student John Malkovich—and Northern Illinois University. Following an invitation from Malkovich she joined the newly formed Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 1977. In 1986 she made her Broadway debut opposite Malkovich in Lanford Wilson’s Burn This, for which she received a Best Actress Tony Award. A year later she was nominated again for the lead role in The Heidi Chronicles.

Allen then shifted from stage to film beginning with COMPROMISING POSITIONS (1985), honed her technique with films such as MANHUNTER (1986), TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM (1988), ETHAN FROME (1993) and caught Hollywood’s attention and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress as First Lady Pat Nixon in NIXON (1995). Her role in THE CRUCIBLE (1996) earned her a second Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Three years later she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of a dignified United States Senator facing down a vicious personal attack in THE CONTENDER (2000). Joan Allen has impressed audiences and critics around the world with her performances in widely diverse roles in films as varied as FACE/OFF (1997), THE ICE STORM (1997) and THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (2004). She will be seen in two upcoming films, THE UPSIDE OF ANGER, a comedy also starring Kevin Costner and PUSHERS NEEDED, which she coproduced.

Previous recipients of the Peter J. Owens Award have been Chris Cooper (2004), Dustin Hoffman (2003), Kevin Spacey (2002), Stockard Channing (2001), Winona Ryder (2000), Sean Penn (1999), Nicolas Cage (1998), Annette Bening (1997) and Harvey Keitel (1996). The Peter J. Owens Award is made possible through a grant from the Peter J. Owens Trust at the San Francisco Foundation.

For Film Society Awards Night tickets and information only, call 415-551-5190. Film Society Awards Night is sponsored by Bulgari and The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco.
The 48th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 21–May 5, 2005 at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, the Home of the Festival, and the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley and Landmark’s Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto. Tickets for San Francisco Film Society members will be available on March 29 and for the general public on April 5. To purchase tickets and for ticket information log on to www.sffs.org, call 925-866-9559 or visit the Main Box Office, located in the atrium of the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, 1881 Post Street. For up-to-date Festival information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415-561-5000.

The 48th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21–May 5, 2005) is presented by the San Francisco Film Society, a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating international film and the moving image.