Ira Sachs Awarded 2014 NewFest Visionary Award

NewFest, a New York-based nonprofit organization, today announced that filmmaker Ira Sachs will be the recipient of the 3rd Annual NewFest Visionary Award at their upcoming film festival, which is co-run by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and takes place at the end of this month. The Achievement Award, “in recognition of a body of work that has made a significant contribution to LGBT film and media,” will be presented to Sachs prior to the Opening Night Gala screening of “Futuro Beach” on Thursday, July 24, at the Walter Reade Theater.

“Ira Sachs’s nuanced and complex films have made a significant contribution to the history of NewFest and to the LGBT canon,” said Kirsten Schaffer, Outfest’s Executive Director. “The rich tapestry of stories he tells, make him a true visionary.”

READ: Sundance Diary: Ira Sachs on Premiering ‘Love is Strange’ and Meeting With Buyers

Sachs’ latest production, “Love is Strange,” stars John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a couple forced to live apart after 38 years together. Co-starring Marisa Tomei and Cheyenne Jackson as their extended family, the film will be released by Sony Pictures Classics on August 22. In our review, Eric Kohn called it “Sachs’s best work,” writing that it is “a sophisticated take on contemporary urbanity infused with romantic ideals and the tragedy of their dissolution.” 

Sachs’s previous work includes the landmark queer film “The Delta,” “Forty Shades of Blue” (for which he won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize), “Married Life” (starring Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, and Rachel McAdams), and “Keep the Lights On,” which was nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Feature and Best Director. 

“To be able to make films with gay characters at their center is as hard today as it was when I first started making movies in 1991,” Sachs said. “Without community events like NewFest, I don’t think we’d have a queer cinema in America. If ‘visionary’ means a belief in the continued future and importance of LGBT cinema, I’m deeply honored to accept.”

For more information and festival news go to their website.