Locarno to honor Christine Vachon

Producer to receive Rezzonico prize

By NICK VIVARELLI

Vachon

ROME — The Locarno Film Festival will fete U.S. producer Christine Vachon at its 61st edition. Fest will hand her the Raimondo Rezzonico prize, which is given to a producer who epitomizes the indie ethos.

New York-based Vachon has shepherded some of the most controversial, critically acclaimed, and successful films to burst from the Yank indie scene since the early 1990s, many via her Killer Films shingle.

Her association with Locarno dates back to 1991 when Todd Haynes’ provocative first feature “Poison,” marking the start of their longstanding collaboration, unspooled at the Swiss lakeside fest dedicated to worldwide art cinema.

Titles produced by Killer Films include Larry Clark’s “Kids,” Todd Solondz’s “Happiness,” Kim Peirce’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” and more recently “I’m Not There,” Haynes’ non-conventional Bob Dylan biopic.

Locarno artistic topper Frederic Maire in a statement praised Vachon for being “fearless in the face of risk and controversy,” noting that “she has encouraged innovative filmmakers with unusual tenacity.”

Vachon is also author of the best-selling tome, “Shooting to Kill: How an Independent Producer Blasts Through the Barriers to Make Movies that Matter.”

Previous recipients of the Rezzonico prize, in memory of Locarno’s late president, include Jeremy Thomas, Paulo Branco and Argentine producer Lita Stantic.

The Locarno fest will run August 6-16.