Richard Linklater is on a roll. Oscar-nominated earlier this year for the “Before Midnight” screenplay and currently traveling the festival circuit with his revered new film “Boyhood,” the prolific writer/director will receive the prestigious Founder’s Directing Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival, now in its 57th year.
The award will be presented to Linklater on the festival’s awards night, Thursday May
1, at The Regency
Center. On May 2, Linklater will also be feted at San Francisco’s iconic Castro Theatre with clips, an onstage interview and a screening of “Boyhood,” which took 12 years to make and stars “Midnight” star/cowriter Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette. It won him the Silver Bear Best Director prize at Berlinale. (Here’s our glowing review of the film.)
The casually charming, no-frills Linklater is no stranger to SFIFF. In 2013, he screened “Before Midnight,” alongside star/co-writer Julie Delpy, and played “Bernie” in SF the year before. In receiving the Founder’s Directing Award, given in memory of Irving M. Levin, Linklater joins the ranks of Philip Kaufman, Oliver Stone, Francis Ford Coppola, Werner Herzog, Spike Lee, Clint Eastwood, Akira Kurosawa and many more auteurs through the years.
Also check out our exclusive interview with newly anointed San Francisco Film Society Executive Director and film fest maven Noah Cowan here.
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