AWARDS CEREMONY CELEBRITY HONOREES

Ceremony to take place at the LA Center Studios

Henry Jaglom

“Independent Filmmaker’s Award”

Born in London, England, brought up from earliest childhood in New York City, Henry Jaglom trained with Lee Strasberg at The Actor’s Studio and performed in off-Broadway theatre and cabaret before coming to Hollywood in the late 1960’s.  Under contract to Columbia Pictures, he guest-starred on T.V. shows (Gidget, The Flying Nun) and was featured in a number of films (Richard Rush’s Psyche-Out, Boris Sagal’s The 1000 Plane Raid) including movies directed by Jack Nicholson (Drive, He Said) Dennis Hopper (The Last Movie) and Orson Welles (The Other Side Of The Wind) – each of whom he eventually directed in return. Although Jaglom’s film-making career began in the cutting room (when he helped edit Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider), his roots are firmly planted in acting and he has co-starred in four of his own films and played supporting roles in two more of them.  According to movie historian David Thompson: “Jaglom’s films are actors’ films, in that they grow out of the actors’ personalities. They are as loose and as unexpected as life but as shaped and witty as great short stories!” 

Mr. Jaglom is unique in the extraordinary degree to which his movies reflect his deeply felt personal concerns – and those of his friends and culture. “In my work I try to understand what I’m going through – and what the people close to me are going through – at any particular time in our lives,” Jaglom explains.  “My first film, A Safe Place (1971), explored the emotions of a young woman having a hard time adjusting to the “real world” and its expectations and requirements of her, just as the 1960s – with all its profound social changes – was coming to an end; when I shot Tracks (1976), I – like everyone I knew – was profoundly disturbed by the Vietnam War, its ruinous physical and emotional cost, and its devastating effect on America’s psyche; Sitting Ducks (1980) was a happy romp, done at a time that I felt, for the first time, that I was actually getting away with life; but I was miserable and felt abandoned in New York City at the end of a marriage when I did Can She Bake A Cherry Pie? (1983); and I was still suffering from the pain of divorce when I plunged into Always (But Not Forever) (1985); I was trying to understand why I and so many of my friends were alone and found ourselves unable to sustain relationships, when I put together Someone To Love (1987); I tried to learn how to start over again and move on in life when I made New Year’s Day (1989); most of the women I knew had complex eating issues and were in one way or another obsessed with food, so we created Eating (1991); I – and they – were confused about the blur between the reality and the illusion of love, out of which came Venice/Venice (1992); we were all yearning for parenthood and many of the women I knew were struggling with their biological clocks, which led to Babyfever (1994); following the deaths of my parents and the subsequent end of “family” as I had known it, I made Last Summer In The Hamptons (1996); out of a lifetime of yearning for the romantic dream of finding the perfect ‘soul mate,’ came Deja  Vu (1998); Festival In Cannes (2002) explored the behind the scenes world of moviemaking that I have been a part of my entire adult life, the excitement and the duplicity, the desperation and the rewards; and the movie coming out this fall, Going Shopping (2005) is a sister film to Eating and Babyfever, an attempt to portray another complex aspect of women’s lives that is usually overlooked by mainstream Hollywood. I’ve just completed principal photograph on my next film, Hollywood Dreams, which deals with our culture’s obsession with fame and its effects on a young woman desperately pursuing it.

“In all of my movies, whatever other factors may be present, I try to essentially explore the life of feelings and longings, dreams and relationships, our never-ending search for love, meaning and fulfillment in a world that often confuses, scares and alienates us.  With each film I want - in one way or another - to reveal the truth as best I can about our emotional lives and put that up on the screen.”

Jacqueline Bisset

“Pioneer Award”

Jacqueline Bisset has been a renowned international film star since the late 1960’s. She was first noted as a stunning on-screen beauty, but over time has become known as a true actress. Bisset has worked with directors John Huston, Francois Truffaut, George Cukor and Roman Polanski. Her co-stars have included Anthony Quinn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Newman, Leelee Sobieski, Armand Assante, and Candice Bergen.

In 1967 Bisset gained her first critical attention in Two for the Road and in that same year she also appeared in the popular James Bond spoof Casino Royale, portraying Miss Goodthighs. In 1968 she starred alongside Frank Sinatra in The Detective. The following year she played opposite Steve McQueen in the hugely popular action film, Bullitt.

In 1973 Bisset became recognized as a serious actress in Europe when she played a lead character in Truffaut’s Day for Night.

Jacqueline’s stunning good looks made quite a big splash in The Deep (1977). Her underwater swimming scenes in that movie inspired the worldwide wet t-shirt craze, and Newsweek magazine declared her “The Most Beautiful Film Actress of all Time.”

Many Americans began to recognize Bisset as a serious actress in her performance in Rich and Famous (1981). She received Golden Globe nominations for her roles in Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978) and Under the Volcano (1984). In 1996 she was nominated for a Cesar award, the French equivalent of the Oscar, for her role in La Ceremonie, (1995). She continues to make numerous films, and frequently participates in film festivals and award ceremonies around the world.

Sally Kirkland

“Lifetime Achievement Award”

Sally Kirkland is an actress in film, TV, and stage as well as a lifetime member of the Actor’s Studio. She is best known for her role in Anna, which, in 1988, garnered her the Best Actress Oscar Nomination, and won her the best actress Golden Globe, the Independent Spirit Award, the LA Film Critics Award, Women in Film Award, and the Diversity Award. Kevin Thomas, Senior LA Time’s film critic cited her performance in Anna as one of the five best performances by a woman in the ‘80s.

Her career began in New York with Joseph Papp, in the NY Shakespeare Festival. From there she went on to study at the Actor’s Studio with Lee Strasberg in the same class with Robert Deniro, Al Pacino, and Dustin Hoffman. She was the first nude actress in American theater before Hair and Oh Calcutta, in 1968, in Sweet Eros, written by Terance McNally. She acted for ten years on the New York Stage. In 1964, she starred in Andy Warhol’s The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women, and in 1968, with Rip Torn in Coming Apart. She co-starred with Robert Redford in the Sting, with Barbara Streisand in The Way We Were, and with Gene Hackman and James Coburn in Bite the Bullet, and in 1982, with Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell, in Neil Young’s film Human Highway. Shortly after she became an international film star in 1987-1988 in Anna, she starred with Tom Waits and David Carradine in Cold Feet, (1989), and with Eric Roberts and James Earl Jones in Best of the Best. She also starred with Martin Landau in Paint IT Black. In High Stakes, she starred with Sarah Michelle Gellar, and in Two Evil Eyes with Harvey Keitel. She starred in Revenge with Kevin Costner and Anthony Quinn, in Bullseye with Michael Caine and Roger Moore, and in JFK with Kevin Costner. On TV, she starred (ACE award) in Heat Wave, and in Largo Desoloto, with F. Murray Abraham. In 1991, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a movie for TV, in The Haunted, the True Story. In 1992-93 she had a reoccurring role on Rosanne, and starred with Rosanne and Tom Arnold in the Woman Who Loved Elvis. In 1994, she played Helen Lawson in the CBS Valley of the DolIs, and in that time-frame began producing herself in films. In 1992, she starred with Sean Young and Diane Ladd in Forever, and was the co-producer. In 1993, she Exec-produced and starred with James Brolin and Kris Kristopherson, in Cheatin’ Hearts. In 1995, she starred in Picture Windows “Song of Psalms” (ACE Award Winning) with George Segal, and directed by Peter Beogdanwsch In 1997, she was the associate producer and starred in Amnesia with Ally Sheedy and John Savage for Showtime. She starred with Benicio Del Toro and Alicia Silverstone in Excess Baggage. In 1998 she starred in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World for NBC. For cable television, she starred in The Island also known as Norma Jean, Jack and Me as an older Marylyn Monroe. In 1999, she starred in Ron Howard’s film ED TV. In 1999 she starred as “Tracy” for a season of Days of Our Lives and starred in a feature for Lifetime TV in Another Woman’s Husband. In 2001 she exec-produced the short, Audit, staring with Alexis Arquette and won the Win Femme Film Festival.

TV found her recurring as Felicity’s art Professor in Felicity, and as Peter Riggs’s mother in Strong Medicine, and in Resurrection Boulevard. In 2002, she associate produced and starred in Mother’s and Daughters, which was the winner of the San Diego Film Festival for best Screenplay. In 2004 she associate produced and starred in the feature Mango Kiss. Tom Shadyac directed her opposite Jim Carrey, in Bruce Almighty as Anita, the waitress. In 2004, she produced the short, An Eye for an Eye (nominated 2005 for Best Short Independent Producers Gala Award, IPG). In April 2005 Tribeca Film Festival premiered in competition, Neo Ned in which she stars with Jeremy Renner and Gabrielle Union and Adam and Steve with Craig Chester, Parker Posey, and Chris Katan. As a producer and star, she’s in post now with the features A-List and What’s Up Scarlet.

Sally directed on Showtime TV Women’s Stories of Passion, and has been teaching acting on and off since the ‘70s at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute as well as Yoga and Transformational Acting and Forgiveness Workshops at Peace Theological Seminary. In addition to acting, producing, and directing, she is a teacher, a shown painter, an ordained minister, and a published poet.

For more information on Sally Kirkland, please see her biography on IMDB and at www.Sally Kirkland.com.

Penelope Spheeris

“Maverick Award”

A holder of a UCLA Master of Fine Arts degree in Theater Arts, Penelope Spheeris worked as a film editor and cinematographer before forming her own production company in 1974. Rock ‘N’ Reel was the first Los Angeles company specializing in music videos. She produced and directed music videos for such acts as Funkadelics, Fleetwood Mac, Doobie Brothers, and Seals and Croft. From there she went on to produce short films on Saturday Night Live and later produced her first feature film, Real Life, which starred Albert Brooks and Charles Grodin.

Spheeris’ directorial debut was the probing documentary on the Los Angeles punk rock scene, The Decline Of Western Civilization which was received in 1979 with stunning unanimous critical praise. It was followed by a remarkable low budget drama, Suburbia, in which she found another dimension to the ongoing youth rebellion story: Homeless kids squatting in abandoned housing, surrounded by wild dogs, trying to make a life for themselves, protecting one another and avoiding the return home at all costs. Suburbia won first place at the Chicago Film Festival.

In 1984, The Boys Next Door starred Charlie Sheen and Maxwell Caulfield in an anti-violence film that showed how perfectly normal looking boys whose anger has long been repressed, can be walking time bombs capable of becoming serial killers.

In these films Spheeris reveals the desolation of the American dream gone bad, depicting scenes of young people exhibiting irreversible pain and alienation. In Dudes, starring John Cryer, Daniel Roebuck, Lee Ving and Flea, alienated punk rockers find a way to give meaning to life when they discover a sense of values while setting straight the death of a friend.

In 1988 The Decline Of Western Civilization, Part Ii: The Metal Years was released, again to spectacular critical acclaim. A caustically hilarious look at the Los Angeles metal scene. The scene with W.A.S.P. rocker Chris Holmes and his mother will probably remain one of the most memorable pieces of rock film history.

In 1992, Spheeris directed her first studio film, Wayne’s World at Paramount Pictures. Subsequently she directed and produced The Beverly Hillbillies at Fox. The Little Rascals (Universal), Black Sheep (Paramount) and Senseless (Dimension) were to follow.

The Decline Of Western Civilization: Part Iii was filmed in 1997. Documenting the present day punk scene, most of the kids were not yet born when the first installment was made. The film focuses on lifestyle rather than music in that most of the subjects are homeless, the products of child abuse and a society truly in decline. Spheeris financed the film herself and will donate her profits to charities for homeless and abused children.

Spheeris traveled for months with fourteen bands and a myriad of carnival attractions to document the Ozzfest, America’s most successful summer concert tour, and the final reunion performances of the original Black Sabbath. Through twenty-eight cities, each bringing in crowds of thirty to forty thousand, she and DV and HD crews offer the audience a unique view of life on the road. The project, We Sold Our Souls For Rock ‘N Roll will be released later this year.

The Kid And I produced and directed by Spheeris was completed in late 2004.

Patricia Cardoso

“Visionary Award”

Patricia Cardoso is a writer/director and a Fulbright scholar. Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Patricia attempted to make her first film when she was eight. Due to the lack of technology in her household the film was made with a small cardboard box, two toothpicks, and a long rolled paper with drawings. It was a humorous documentary about fat cows and skinny cows. Patricia’s directing credits include Real Women Have Curves, winner of the Dramatic Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Student Academy Award winning film The Water Carrier. Patricia is a graduate of the UCLA Film School.

Ms. Cardoso was an archaeologist before becoming a filmmaker. Patricia’s first film, the twelve-minute short The Air Globes, was made for $5,000 and made $40,000. Patricia worked at the Sundance Institute for six years, first as an intern in the mailroom and as a translator, eventually becoming director of Sundance’s Latin American program.

Her films have screened nationally and internationally at festivals, theaters and television (public, cable and network). Other honors include: two Directors Guild of America Awards, a Shenkin Fellowship from Yale University, a National Board of Review Excellence in Filmmaking Mention, and the UCLA Filmmaker of the year award. Although originally produced as an HBO cable movie, Real Women Have Curves became the first HBO film ever to be released theatrically in the US.