Boston Society of Film Critics & Brattle Theatre to Honor Filmmaker Debra Granik for Inaugural BSFC Career Spotlight Award
Press Release: Boston (April 26, 2019) – The Boston Society of Film Critics (BSFC) announced today that partnered with the Brattle Theatre to present the inaugural “BSFC Career Spotlight” Award to filmmaker Debra Granik. The writer/director will be present to participate in a special repertory series of her work complemented by titles handpicked by Granik herself. The series will take place from Friday, May 31 to Sunday, June 2, on which Granik will be presented with the first-ever BSFC Career Spotlight Award.
Debra Granik was born in Cambridge, MA, and has directed four films to date – “Down to the Bone” (2004), “Winter’s Bone” (2010), “Stray Dog” (2014) and “Leave No Trace” (2018). The filmmaker recently received The Bonnie Award from the Film Independent Spirit Award, which “recognizes female directors with a remarkable body of work that demonstrated their uniqueness of vision and groundbreaking approach to film.”
Granik will be at The Brattle in person for Q&As throughout the weekend, and will be presented with the inaugural BSFC Career Spotlight Award following Sunday’s 7pm screening of “Leave No Trace.” And ina uniquely tailored format, Granik has collaborated with Brattle Creative Director, Ned Hinkle, to program complementary titles that have influenced her work. Titles include Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” Monte Hellman’s “Cockfighter” and Aki Kaurismäki’s “The Other Side of Hope.”
“I am excited to hunker down at the Brattle for a feast of Americana, mixed with a few movies from afar,” says Debra Granik. “The lyrical realism that these films exemplify is alive and well today, but it often gets buried by our culture’s behemoth commercial side. I come to the theater searching for visual notes and observations and patterns that help me understand the enormous emotional and psychic challenges of living in a mass consumer society. In every decade, movies have been a tool to help us decipher and distill how we got here and what we need. Somehow it soothes me, re-kindles my curiosity and compassion, and makes me feel not so all alone with the havoc and incomprehensibilities. These are a few of the films that, for me, can point a way forward in those times when hope can seem hard to find.”
Each of Granik’s four films will screen over the course of three days from May 31 to June 2 at The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA. Additional complementary titles will be showcased throughout the weekend. “The Brattle is thrilled to be joining with the Boston Society of Film Critics to celebrate Debra Granik,” says Ned Hinkle. “It’s rare that any artist can instill their work with so much empathy and it’s remarkable that, over a relatively short career, Granik has created films that can stand with the great humanist filmmakers of any age.”
“Debra Granik is one of the most maverick female filmmakers out there, and is in fine company with Kathryn Bigelow, Lynne Ramsay and Claire Denis,” says Tom Meek, BSFC President. “Oftentimes, filmmakers are honored late in their career or after their career has finished. Recognizing a filmmaker’s body of work while in progress is something that doesn’t happen enough.”
For full details on this screening series, and to buy tickets, please visit http://www.brattlefilm.org
Boston Society of Film Critics 