The San Luis Obispo International Film Festival and event sponsors BHE Renewables, New Times, Martin Resorts and KSBY are thrilled to announce that the 21st King Vidor Award for Excellence in Filmmaking will be presented to multi-Oscar® nominated director and screenwriter, Peter Bogdanovich. The award will be presented on Saturday, March 14 at the Fremont Theatre in San Luis Obispo.
Join us for a festive evening that begins with a celebration of winning films, hosted by KSBY-TV’s Dan Shadwell. George Sidney Independent Film and Central Coast Filmmaker Awards will be presented in several categories, juried by film and media professionals. Major festival sponsors and City officials will be on hand to present awards, which include the Audience Choice Awards, based on votes collected during the first four days of the festival.
After a short intermission, the 21st King Vidor Award for Excellence in Filmmaking will be presented to multi-Oscar® nominated director and screenwriter, Peter Bogdanovich. After the award presentation, Bogdanovich will discuss his storied career with Jim Dee, owner of local art-house Palm Theater, and then introduce a special screening of “The Last Picture Show.” A reception in Mr. Bogdanovich’s honor will follow at the Warden Building in downtown San Luis Obispo.
Best known for his directorial and writing efforts for “The Last Picture Show,” “What’s Up Doc,” “Paper Moon,” and “Mask”, the acclaimed writer, director, actor and longtime Hollywood personality, got his start working as an actor in live TV and theatre as a teenager in the late 50’s. At age 20 he began directing Off-Broadway plays. He achieved notoriety for programming movies at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. An obsessive cinema-goer, sometimes seeing up to 400 movies a year in his youth, Bogdanovich prominently showcased the work of American directors such as Orson Welles, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock.
In 1966, he began working as Roger Corman’s assistant on “The Wild Angels”, and then went on to direct his first film, “Targets”, starring Boris Karloff. He earned his first Oscar nod in 1971 with “The Last Picture Show,” starring then-unknowns Jeff Bridges (2014 King Vidor Award recipient), Timothy Bottoms, Cybill Shepherd, Ellen Burstyn, and Cloris Leachman, in this brilliant look at small-town Texan-American life in the early 1950s. The film won the New York Film Critics’ Circle Award for Best Screenplay (which Bogdanovich co-wrote with novelist Larry McMurtry), the British Academy Award for Best Screenplay, and received a total of eight Academy Award nominations, including three for Bogdanovich. Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman won for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. AFI listed “The Last Picture Show” as one of the “100 Best Films Ever Made.” In 1998, the Library of Congress designated the film as a National Treasure.
The following year he directed “What’s Up Doc?,” a romantic farce starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal, followed by “Paper Moon” (1973), a Depression era tale about a pair of unlikely con artists. That film garnered four Academy Award nominations and a win for Best Actress for the nine-year-old Tatum O’Neal – the youngest performer ever to win an Academy Award.
Highlights in the following years include “Mask”, starring Cher and Eric Stoltz (1985) “They All Laughed,” (1981) Audrey Hepburn’s last starring picture, “Noises Off” (1992) with an all-star cast, “The Cat’s Meow” (2001) and “Texasville” (1990), a sequel to “The Last Picture Show,” again starring Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd.
He is the author of a number of books that include This Is Orson Welles, John Ford and Who The Devil Made It, and Who The Hell’s In It, all fascinating biographies that continue to be read by avid cine-files.
As an actor, Bogdanovich continues to take on a variety of roles. The best known is his recurring role of the ‘shrink’s shrink’ in the award-winning HBO series, The Sopranos. A younger version of Bogdanovich will be seen again soon in the premiere of Orson Welle’s last film that was never completed – “The Other Side of the Wind.” Filmed in the mid-70’s, it also stars Dennis Hopper, Susan Strasberg and John Huston. He also recently directed the spring release, “She’s Funny That Way,” with a cast that includes Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston and Cybill Shepherd.
The SLOIFF’s awards event will begin at 7:00pm with the presentation of juried and audience awards for festival filmmakers, followed by the King Vidor Award presentation. After a conversation with Palm Theatre’s Jim Dee, Bogdanovich will introduce a screening of “The Last Picture Show.” An awards after-party will also be held at the Warden Building in downtown San Luis Obispo. See below for details.
Saturday, March 14, 7:00pm Fremont Theatre
$12 General / $10 Students & SLOIFF Film Society – Only Movie Mogul, Sponsor Mogul and Filmmaker Passes accepted for this Red Carpet Event. Click here for tickets.
KING VIDOR AWARD RECEPTION
Sponsored by Ancient Peaks Winery, Biddle Ranch Winery, Kelsey See Canyon Vineyards, Sextant Wines, Roxo Port Cellars, Novo,Big Sky, Tito’s Handmade Vodka/Young’s Market, Windows on the Water, and Spyglass Restaurants.
Rub elbows with the 2015 King Vidor honoree and special guests, and SLOIFF filmmakers while enjoying fine wines and great food in the cozy setting of the historic Warden Building in the middle of downtown San Luis Obispo.
Saturday, March 14, 9:00pm
Warden Building, 770 Higuera St. San Luis Obispo
$35 General / $25 Students & SLOIFF Film Society – Click here to purchase tickets now.
Only Movie Mogul, Sponsor Mogul and Filmmaker Passes accepted for this Red Carpet Event.
