Friday, April 24, 2015, 4pm
San Francisco International Film Festival
Sundance Kabuki Cinemas
1881 Post Street
San Francisco
Academy Award-winning film director Alex Gibney will present film clips from several of his documentaries, in conversation with Noah Cowan, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society. The event will be hosted by Rob Epstein, co-chair of CCA’s Film Program and MFA in Film Program.
Director Alex Gibney has been called “the most important documentarian of our time” (Esquire) and “one of the pre-eminent filmmakers in America” (indiewire).
Known for his cinematic, gripping, and deeply insightful documentaries, the filmmaker has won the Academy Award, the Emmy, the Grammy, the Peabody, the DuPont-Columbia, the Independent Spirit, and the Writers Guild of America Award, to name just a few.
Gibney’s film Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2008. His documentary about Lance Armstrong’s spectacular fall from grace, The Armstrong Lie (2013), was short-listed for the 2014 Academy Award. It was also nominated for the 2014 BAFTA Award, along with his film We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (2013). His most recent films, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, premiere on HBO in spring 2015.
Gibney’s latest theatrical release, Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine (2015), presents a critical examination of Jobs, revered as an iconoclastic genius and denounced as a barbed-tongued tyrant. The film is a candid telling of the Apple legend through interviews with a handful of those close to Jobs at different stages in his life.
Cinema Visionaries is an initiative of CCA’s Film program. This series brings film industry luminaries to campus for master classes and public lectures, giving students invaluable direct exposure to successful practitioners from the professional film industry. An official program at the San Francisco Film Festival, the Alex Gibney event launches a new partnership between CCA and the SF Film Society. CCA and the SFFS will now jointly produce the Cinema Visionaries series.
Cinema Visionaries is funded with the generous support of Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein. It began in 2010 with a grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Past filmmakers
A selected list of the diverse filmmakers who have shared their work as part of the Cinema Visionaries series:
Lisa Cholodenko (spring 2014): The Kids Are All Right (2010); Cavedweller (2004); Laurel Canyon (2002); High Art (1998)
Michael Moore (fall 2013): Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004); Sicko (2007); Bowling for Columbine (2002); Roger and Me (1989)
Sam Green (spring 2013): The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller (ongoing); Utopia in Four Movements (2010); The Weather Underground (2002)
Lucy Walker (spring 2013): The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (2011); Wasteland (2010)
Barbara Hammer (fall 2012): Tender Fictions (1996); Nitrate Kisses (1992); Dyketactics (1974)
Werner Herzog (fall 2012): Into the Abyss (2011); Grizzly Man (2005); Fitzcarraldo (1982)
John Waters (spring 2012) A Dirty Shame (2004); Serial Mom (1994); Cry-Baby (1990); Hairspray (1988); Polyester (1981); Pink Flamingos (1972)
Barry Jenkins (fall 2011): Chlorophyl (2011); Tall Enough (2009); A Young Couple (2009); Medicine for Melancholy (2008)
Lourdes Portillo (spring 2011): Night Passages (2013); Al Más Allá (2008); My McQueen (2004); Señorita Extraviada (2001); Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (1985)
Gus Van Sant (spring 2011): Milk (2008); Good Will Hunting (1997); My Own Private Idaho (1991); Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) offers 22 undergraduate and 13 graduate programs in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers BFA, BA, MFA, MA, MBA, BArch, MArch, and MAAD degrees. It has campuses in San Francisco and Oakland and currently enrolls 1,950 full-time students. For more information about CCA, visit cca.edu.
