MGLFF 2008
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD SPONSORED BY HBO
CHRISTINE VACHON
To the average moviegoer, seeing the name Christina Vachon on screen is just another in a countless list of credits; but to a cinephile, Vachon's name is a tell-tale sign that you are about to witness imaginative, innovative and ground breaking films.
Born and raised in New York's upper west side, the
daughter of a World War II photographer, Vachon
attended Brown University where she studied
semiotics. It was during her time there that she met a
young West Coast transplant and fellow student named
Todd Haynes. Haynes showed Vachon a film he had
made called Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, that
innovatively used a cast of Barbie dolls, to act-out the
singer's battles with Anorexia. Immediately Vachon
told Haynes she wanted to produce his next movie.
Their longstanding collaboration has led Haynes to say
"At the most fundamental level, my films wouldn't
come into being without Christine."
It's the late 1980's and Vachon, having graduated college just a few years prior (1983), has already commenced her career in film. Her first noteworthy job is to serve as assistant editor on Bill Sherwood's Parting Glances, a film, that like many of the ones Vachon's been involved with, is considered a seminal work in the canon of LGBT film. A string of short films followed, and then in 1991 Vachon with director Todd Haynes, premiered Poison a controversial film based in part on the writing of Jean Genet, at the Sundance Film Festival. Honored and feted with the Festival's Grand Jury Prize, Poison was a defining film in Vachon's career and set her on track to be the independent film powerhouse that she is today. An early entry in to what film scholar B. Ruby Rich would term the New Queer Cinema, an era that reached its peak in 1992, Poison ushered in a wave of LGBT themed films that included Swoon also produced by Vachon, directed by Tom Kalin, based on real-life gay-couple and assassins Leopold & Loeb. Chastised by many for making work that portrayed LGBT characters in less than positive lights, the films attained massive and long lasting acclaim. In 1994 when Rich declared in an interview that New Queer Cinema age had officially ended, Vachon had already gone on to produce Rose Troche's Go Fish and Steve McLean's Post Cards from America both in 1994.
In 1995 along with Pamela Koffler, Vachon officially formed Killer Films (Katie Roumel would not become a partner until 2001) and in its first year the company slated out four productions of cutting edge works, including Kids, Larry Clark's look at teenage life; Stonewall, Nigel Finch's dramatization of the events leading up to the birth of the modern gay rights movement; I Shot Andy Warhol, Mary Harron's depiction of the real-life story of Valerie Solanas, and Todd Hayne's follow-up feature Safe, a disturbing look at modern life.
Vachon partnered with Haynes for a third time with 1998's Velvet Goldmine set in the world of 1970's
Glamrock, followed in that year by Todd Solondz' look at family dysfunction in Happiness. Vachon's took on Kimberly Pierce's dramatization of the life of murdered transgender teen Brandon Teena, in 1999's Boys Don't Cry for which star Hilary Swank received the Academy Award™ for Best Actress.
The new millennium ushered in more innovative offerings from Vachon, many featuring queer themes including John Cameron Mitchells cult classic Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), One Hour Photo (2002), Haynes' Far From Heaven (2002) which was nominated for four Academy Awards, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's film biopic on club kid Michael Alig Party Monster (2003), a look at musical theater loving teens in Camp (2003), John Waters' look at sexual fetishes in A Dirty Shame (2004) and a friendship affected by the presence of an older woman in 2004's A Home at the End of the World.
Author of two books on filmmaking, 1998's L.A Times bestseller Shooting to Kill and 2006's A Killer Life: How an Independent Film Producer Survives Deal and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond, Vachon continues to push the envelope, tackling provocative subject mater and delivering cinematic gems including The Notorious Bettie Page (2005), Infamous (2006), An American Crime (2007), Then She Found Me (2007), Savage Grace (2007) and I'm Not There (another partnership with Haynes that garnered various SAG, Independent Spirit, and Academy Award nominations).
In 2005, her films received a special retrospective at the New York Museum of Modern Art on the occasion of Killer Film's 10th Anniversary, a fitting tribute for a lifelong New Yorker who lives in Manhattan's East Village with partner Marlene McCarty and their daughter Guthrie.
Honored by the likes of Frameline, New York Women in
Film and Television, New York Film Critics Circle, The
National Board of Review and the SXSW, Provincetown,
and Deauville Film Festivals respectively. The Miami Gay
& Lesbian Film Festival is proud to present its 2008
Career Achievement Award, sponsored by HBO.
She will be accepting her Career Achievement Award via pre-recorded statement.
Savage Grace
Saturday May 3 - 10:15 pm
