April 29, 2011

Christine Vachon, the highly regarded and award winning independent film producer, will visit Westphal on May 19th and 20th to hold workshops with classes in the Film &Video, Television and Screenwriting Programs. There will be a public screening of one of Vachon's films on Thursday, May 19th at 7 PM in Bossone's Mitchell Auditorium. The screening will be free and open to the public.

Vachon is one of the most influential producers in the independent film industry having produced over 65 film and television projects with three feature films currently in pre-production. She has been associated in particular with a number of ground-breaking gay and lesbian independent films, an association that began when she produced her first film, Todd Haynes' Poison in 1991. Poison was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival. Since then, she has gone on to produce many acclaimed films including Far From Heaven, nominated for four Academy Awards; Boys Don't Cry, Academy Award Winner; One Hour Photo; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Happiness; Velvet Goldmine; SAFE; I Shot Andy Warhol; Go Fish; Swoon; I'm Not There; Gigantic; Cracks and Cairo Time. Her latest projects include a short-film collaboration with ACE Hotel and online film content producers Massify entitled Lulu at the Ace Hotel, as well as Mildred Pierce, a five-part mini-series adaptation of James M. Cain's 1941 novel starring Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood, which just recently finished airing on HBO. Vachon's visit is co-sponsored by Westphal's Film & Video and Television programs and the Kal and Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry.