Lone Star International Film Festival Fort Worth in Sundance Square Names Competition Jurors
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Contact: Thomas Moore Blanchard Schaefer Advertising & Public Relations 817.226.4332 x223 [email protected] Lone Star International Film Festival Fort Worth in Sundance Square Names Competition Jurors Participants internationally recognized in film and art communities FORT WORTH, Texas – Nov. 6, 2009 – The Lone Star Film Society (LSFS), has announced the competition jurors for its upcoming 2009 Lone Star International Film Festival Fort Worth in Sundance Square, Nov. 11-15. The juries are comprised of esteemed professionals from the creative and business aspects of the film and art community. (Complete list and biographies of jurors below.) “The credentials of this year’s jurors bring a tremendous amount of credibility to our festival, and speaks to the quality of work being presented,” said Alec Jhangiani, LSFS artistic director. “With such an accomplished and diverse mix of talented jury participants, the films that will eventually be recognized as winners in their respective categories will hold tremendous merit in domestic and international film circles. We are very fortunate to have such high caliber individuals participate in this festival.” Film lineup and schedules for the 2009 Lone Star International Film Festival Fort Worth in Sundance Square are available at www.lsiff.com. CATEGORIES & JURORS: Narrative Feature Competition Foreign Language Feature Competition Christian Gaines – Director of Festivals, IMDB Harris Dew – Director of Programs and Promotions, Betty Buckley – Actress/Singer IFC Center, New York Melonie Diaz – Actor Kelly Williams – Director of Programming, Austin Film Festival Documentary Feature Competition Andrei Plakhov – President, International Federation Erin Owens – Vice President of Distribution, of Film Critics Arthouse Films Malcolm Warner, Ph.D. – Deputy Director, Kimbell Animation Competition Art Museum of Fort Worth Dave Vallone – Animation Supervisor, ReelFX Eric Bricker – Filmmaker Studios Eric Drobile – Animator, ReelFX Studios Short Form Competition Jonathan Bryant – Motion Graphics Artist, Red Arianne Ayers - Publicity and Marketing Director, Productions Magnolia Pictures Owen Shiflett – Manager of Original Programming, AMC Network JUROR BIOS: Narrative Feature Competition Christian Gaines – Director of Festivals, IMDB In 1988, Christian Gaines joined the American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival, serving as its Administrative Director for six years. In 1994, Christian was appointed Film Programmer at the Sundance Film Festival, programming the 1995 and 1996 festivals. From 1996 to 2000, he served as Festival Director and Director of Programming for the Hawaii International Film Festival, responsible for the overall management and programming of the festival. From 2000 to 2008, Christian served as Director of Festivals at the American Film Institute, where he worked on several festivals including AFI FEST, serving as Festival Director. During this time, Christian was key to the launch planning of SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival now in its sixth year, was instrumental in developing a strategic alliance with the American Film Market, and oversaw the rapid development of AFI’s Los Angeles-based, year-round exhibition programs. Representing AFI, Christian also spearheaded the negotiations that led to the launch of the AFI DALLAS International Film Festival. Most recently, Christian joined IMDb.com, and Amazon.com company, as Director of Festivals. Betty Buckley Betty Lynn Buckley was born in Big Spring, Texas and raised in Fort Worth, the daughter of Betty Bob (née Diltz), a dancer and journalist, and Ernest Lynn Buckley, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and former dean of engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and South Dakota State University. She is the eldest of their four children. While a student at Texas Christian University (TCU), she was crowned "Miss Fort Worth" in 1966 and was runner-up in the Miss Texas competition. Buckley was then invited to perform at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, and it was there that she was spotted by a talent scout. After returning to TCU to earn her degree, she toured Asia to visit soldiers wounded in the Vietnam War. She then worked for a time as a reporter for the Fort Worth newspaper but went to New York City in 1969, where she landed the role of Martha Jefferson in the original Broadway production of 1776 on her first day in town. Buckley has been called "The Voice of Broadway" by New York Magazine. Her rendition of "Memory" in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats established her reputation. She has recorded 13 solo albums and tours extensively across the U.S. each year and is also featured on many Broadway compilation recordings. Also a composer, her first recording is mostly her own compositions. She has twice been nominated for a Grammy Award. Buckley has also taught song interpretation and communication for over 30 years, conducting master classes in Fort Worth. Melonie Diaz A native of New York, Melonie Diaz started her film career with a supporting role in Tom DiCillo's Double Whammy (2001) with her breakthrough roles coming later as Blanca in Catherine Hardwicke's Lords of Dogtown (2005) and as Laurie in Dito Montiel's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) which earned her an Independent Spirit Awards nomination for Best Supporting Female. Her first studio film Be Kind Rewind, premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival along with three others in which she appeared, earning her the title “Queen of Sundance” — an honor she shares with Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst and Chloe Sevigny. Diaz's 2008 Sundance films illustrate both her vivacity and versatility and her recent anchoring performance in Spencer Parson’s I’ll Come Running expertly conveys both the film’s warmth and rough edges. She has made numerous off-Broadway and workshop appearances. In the year 2008 alone she appeared in 6 films: Nothing Like the Holidays, Hamlet 2, Be Kind Rewind, Assassination of a High School President, I'll Come Running, and American Son. In the course of 7 years she has appeared in 15 films and numerous TV episodes. Having recently completed a degree in Film Production at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she produced her first film in 2009, a 20 minute short entitled She’s a Blur. Melonie appears in a recurring role on the current season of Nip/Tuck, is also serving as a Narrative Feature Juror for the Independent Spirit Awards as well as on the Breakthrough Actor Juror for the Gotham Independent Film Awards. Documentary Feature Competition Erin Owens – Vice President of Distribution, Arthouse Films “Erin Owens is currently the VP of Theatrical Distribution at Arthouse Films. Previously she was Director of Marketing at THINKFilm and Director of Publicity at Palm Pictures.” Malcolm Warner, Ph.D. – Deputy Director, Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth Malcolm Warner joined the Kimbell Art Museum as Senior Curator in 2002 and was appointed Deputy Director in 2007, also serving as Acting Director from September 2007 to March 2009. He was previously Curator of European Art at the San Diego Museum of Art and Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art. He was born in Aldershot (UK) and pursued both undergraduate and graduate studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. He received his Ph.D. from the Courtauld in 1985. His doctoral dissertation was on the Pre- Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. He remains the leading authority on Millais and is preparing a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s works. His publications have ranged widely over European art, with an emphasis on art in Britain, from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. They include various articles and essays on Millais and other Victorian painters, an introductory history of portraiture, a guidebook to places in Britain associated with artists, and a catalogue of British paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago. He has taught courses in art history at the universities of Manchester, Cambridge, and Chicago. Among the exhibitions that Malcolm Warner has curated are The Victorians. British Painting in the Reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (1997); This Other Eden: British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale, which toured Australian museums (1998); Millais: Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London (1999); James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love at the Yale Center for British Art and other venues (1999); Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockney at Yale and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California (2001-2002); Stubbs and the Horse at the Kimbell Art Museum, the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, and the National Gallery, London (2004-2005); the award-winning The Mirror and the Mask: Portraiture in the Age of Picasso at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and the Kimbell Art Museum (2007); and Butchers, Dragons, Gods & Skeletons: Film Installations by Philip Haas Inspired by Works in the Collection (2009). Eric Bricker Filmmaker Eric Bricker made his directorial debut with Visual Acoustics, the award winning documentary film narrated by Dustin Hoffman, on the life and work of acclaimed photographer Julius Shulman. Visual Acoustics won the Mercedes- Benz Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Austin Film Festival, and the Grand Jury Prize at the Lone Star International Film Festival. It has also been screened with much critical acclaim at the Los Angeles Film Festival (world premiere), Chicago International Film Festival, Festival International Du Film Sur L'Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Carnegie Museum of Art. The film is currently screening in theaters in a number of cities across the United States. Short Form Competition Arianne Ayers - Publicity and Marketing Director, Magnolia Pictures Arianne Ayers is the Publicity and Marketing Director at Magnolia Pictures. Arianne has been with the company for three years overseeing regional publicity and festival relations.