Altman
The San Francisco Intl. Film Festival will fete Robert Altman with its inaugural Film Society Award for lifetime achievement in directing during the fest's 46th edition, which runs April 17-May 1.
Nod will be presented to Altman Apr. 23 during Film Society Awards Night at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in S.F.
Hyphenate, whose career spans six decades, has helmed more than 40 films, including "MASH," "Nashville," "The Player," "Short Cuts" and last year's Oscar-nominated "Gosford Park."
"Robert Altman has made a career of using cinema as a canvas on which to paint the full spectrum of human emotion for us as audience members to ponder, laugh at and cry with," said San Francisco Film Society executive director Roxanne Messina Captor. "The Film Society is excited to bring a truly independent filmmaker with such a long and distinguished career to San Francisco."
Captor also appointed journalist Michel Ciment the festival's guest programmer. Ciment, longtime editor of French film magazine Positif, has served on juries for the Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Locarno film fests. He will present the festival's inaugural State of Cinema address.
"Michel has attended the festival as a journalist and written film notes for the program, so he knows the festival well," Captor said. "I know that our audiences will be caught up by his passion for film and appreciate his discovery of and advocacy on behalf of important new works."
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