Richard Gere Faces Good Year as Oscar-Worthy ‘Time Out of Mind’ Yields Tributes, Including SF Film Fest

Richard Gere is having a good year.

At the Toronto, New York, Rome and Hampton film festivals last fall, critics and audiences embraced Oren Moverman’s cinema verite drama “Time Out of Mind,” in which Gere gives a moving, nuanced Oscar-worthy performance as an aging man who is surviving on the streets of New York. He’s also a welcome addition to the starry ensemble hit “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”  

So accepting the Peter J. Owens Award for excellence in acting at the 58th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 27) is likely to be one of many such tributes over the course of the year. Gere will also be publicly honored at “An Evening with Richard Gere” at the Castro Theatre, Sunday April 26, 6:30 pm, via an onstage interview and a selection of clips from his career, followed by a screening of “Time Out of Mind,” which is set to open this year via IFC Films.

 

The Film Society uses the Film Society Awards Night fundraiser to support its year-round exhibition, education and filmmaker services programs. The glam event will also honor the recipients of the Irving M. Levin Directing Award, the Kanbar Award for excellence in storytelling, and the George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award, who will be announced later on.  
 

“Richard Gere is one of cinema’s few unmistakable icons, a powerful connection to the heart of Hollywood history,” said SFFS Executive Director Noah Cowan. “But when we saw his extraordinary performance in ‘Time Out of Mind,’ we were instantly reminded of something else — that he is an intoxicatingly gifted actor, capable of extraordinary depth and subtlety. We anticipate continuing acclaim for Gere now and through the awards season.”

 

Richard Gere has won a Golden Globe for the musical “Chicago,” which won the Best Picture Oscar, but surprisingly has never been nominated for an Oscar. Gere started his career on Broadway where he starred in “Bent”; he made his on-screen breakthrough in 1978 with Terrence Malick’s Oscar-winning “Days of Heaven.” His subsequent films include Paul Schrader’s “American Gigolo” and Taylor Hackford’s “An Officer and a Gentleman” as well as such hits as “Internal Affairs,” “Pretty Woman,” “Unfaithful” and “Arbitrage,” which yielded Golden Globe and SAG nominations. He will next appear in “Franny,” directed by Andrew Renzi, and “Oppenheimer Strategies,” co-starring Dan Stevens, Michael Sheen, and Steve Buscemi.