Maverick Spirit Award - Philip Kaufman

Running time: 90 mins

Friday, March 9th - 3pm at the San Jose Repertory Theatre

PART 3 of the Writers Celebration.

A Maverick Conversation with Philip Kaufman

For more than four decades, Philip Kaufman has been gracing the screen with his unique and passionate vision, creating a double-barreled legacy of excellence as both a writer and director. To conclude our Writers Celebration event on March 9 at the San Jose Rep we will be honoring Philip Kaufman with the Maverick Spirit Award. Previous guest recipients include Kevin Spacey, Sir Ben Kingsley, Spike Lee, William H. Macy, Diablo Cody, and Alec Baldwin.

The final act of the evening focuses on the requisite passion that creates all art, particularly cinematic art. All Cinequest Writers Celebration attendees will convene at the San Jose Rep from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. to witness the awarding of the CQFF22 Maverick Spirit Award to Philip Kaufman and to hear him share his expertise through a moderated Q&A session. This honor reflects the essence of the Cinequest spirit and recognizes and celebrates a Maverick who, with purpose and passion, has influenced the world of screenwriting in a unique, positive, and daring fashion. Tickets to the Maverick Spirit Event are $15 or $20 for the entire Writers Celebration day of events.

Born in Chicago, Kaufman attended the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School, but he found film more agreeable to his artistic inclinations after discovering the possibilities of a more personalized storytelling in European cinema and the work of American mavericks like John Cassavetes. His first picture as writer/director, the shot-on-a-shoestring, beatnik-era comedy Goldstein, was acclaimed by French auteur Jean Renoir as the best American film I have seen in twenty years, and it also received the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at Cannes in 1964. He not only creates his own films, he also collaborates with celebrated filmmakers such as George Lucas.

San Francisco based, Kaufman writes and directs films with a distinctly American flavor: his work is outspoken and confident, fiercely independent and liberally seasoned with wide-eyed optimism of the human potential. His films, though highly personal, have tremendous appeal, due largely to his superb story telling skills. He possesses an innate ability to put down on paper what he vividly imagines and then takes those words and shapes them into characters and images that burrow into the unconscious and pack a collective emotional wallop.

For example, his script for The Right Stuff takes Tom Wolfes wildly popular book about the original 1960s Mercury astronauts and fashions it into an epic, uniquely American film, chock full of high drama, heroism, and humor. Through Kaufmans adaptation, the events so widely reported in the press and on television come alive in intimate, human detail. We get inside the astronauts hearts and minds and under their skins. Kaufman creates a special vehicle for this journey, pulls us into the story, and takes us along for an incredible ride.

Now into his sixth decade in the world of moving pictures, Philip Kaufman shows no signs of slowing down. His highly anticipated film Hemingway and Gellhorn, about the legendary writers affair and marriage to legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, screens this coming May on HBO. Sporting his unmistakable shock of hair and the still brilliant twinkle in his eye, its obvious that Phil Kaufmans artistic fire still burns brightly.

To learn more about the Writers Celebration or to purchase a ticket for all Writers Celebration events, please visit the Writers Celebration page.

Sponsor:

Cinequest Film Festival 22