Film Alumnus Geoffrey Gilmore Reels in Honors

Hannibal Lecter will be staring him down. The squirrels might get a little antsy. And approximately 250 students donning the cap and gown will watch in admiration as he walks across the stage to receive an award he never thought he’d get.

“I was somewhat floored when I was told that they selected me,” said Geoffrey Gilmore, who will receive the Alumni Achievement Award from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television during its 2005 graduation ceremony.

Held in Dickson Plaza on June 17, the commencement will also honor “Silence of the Lambs” Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins with the prestigious UCLA Medal, the university’s highest honor. Fay Kanin, actress, writer, producer and former four-term president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will deliver the keynote address.

Though Gilmore may not garner the name recognition of Hopkins or Kanin, his contribution to the American film industry has been equally, if not more, significant.

A graduate of UCLA with a master’s degree in film criticism, Gilmore is currently the director of the world-renowned annual Sundance Film Festival, a position he has held since 1990. As director, he is responsible for film selection and overall programming of a trend-setting independent film market.

“We’re very much trying to walk the line between the commercial and the artistic,” he said.

According to Gilmore, independent films lend themselves to a broader audience because they are not commercially driven, and the entire spectrum of independent film is only slowly being discovered.

But Gilmore has not always been so involved in independent cinema. In fact, he has not even always been particularly interested in film.

“I wasn’t one of those guys who was a film fanatic from birth,” Gilmore said. “I wasn’t a film nerd.”

While studying history and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, Gilmore developed an interest in film. After graduating, the New York native took the first chance he had to move to the west coast, where Bob Rosen, professor and dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, heightened his interest in cinema studies even further.

“I was mostly interested at that point in a lot of international film works from all around the world,” he said. “I didn’t start off saying I wanted to work with independent film.”

Gilmore’s interest in world cinema has not waned over the years. In addition to his work with Sundance (he’s also a consultant for the Sundance Film Channel) Gilmore has been a member of numerous celebrated film juries and committees for organizations and festivals such as The National Endowment for the Arts and the Berlin International Film Festival. He also teaches, writes, and speaks about the independent film scene around the world.

Despite Gilmore’s current devotion to the cause of independent film, his loyalty to UCLA led him to turn down his first offer to head Sundance, after serving as head of the UCLA Film and Television archives programming department for seven years.

“I thought independent film was interesting, but it wasn’t so fascinating that I wanted to give up everything else, so of course I turned them down,” he said.

After a little pleading, Gilmore agreed to work at both Sundance and UCLA. And after working both jobs for about seven years, he resigned to his current position as a visiting assistant professor for UCLA’s prestigious producer’s program.

“I enjoy teaching; it’s a result of being pedantic. I enjoy being around students,” said Gilmore. “I’ve been part of UCLA now for about 27 years and teaching maintains my attachment (to the school).”

The Alumni Award recognizes not only Gilmore’s contributions in the independent and foreign film industries, but also his long-lasting relationship with the university.

“(Receiving the award) made me think about how often we don’t remember the community that UCLA is,” he said. “The breadth of that community is something that you often don’t appreciate until you’ve left.”

Keywords

"robert rosen" "geoffrey gilmore" 

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