ETHAN HAWKE COMES TO CINEMA ARTS FILM FESTIVAL
Artistic Director Richard Herskowitz comments: “We’re thrilled to be bringing Ethan Hawke here with his close friend and collaborator, Rick Linklater. Linklater’sTape was a breakthrough performance for Hawke, and his phenomenal growth as an actor is on ample display in his new psychological thriller, The Woman in the Fifth. Rick Linklater launched our festival in 2009 with the opening night screening of Me and Orson Welles, and has been a supportive member of our honorary board ever since.”
Hawke is best known for his breakthrough supporting role in Dead Poets Society, in which he appeared alongside Robin Williams in 1989. Shortly thereafter, a movie that took place in Houston gained him critical acclaim – 1994’s Generation X drama, Reality Bites. A year later, he starred in Linklater’s romantic drama Before Sunrise, and later in the 2004 sequel Before Sunset. In 2001, Hawke was cast as a rookie police officer in Training Day, for which he received a Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category. Other films have included the science fiction feature Gattaca (1997), the title role in Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet (2000), the action thriller Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), and the crime drama Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007).
In addition, Hawke has appeared in many theater productions including The Seagull, Henry IV, Hurlyburly, The Cherry Orchard, The Winter’s Tale and The Coast of Utopia, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination. He made his directorial debut with the 2002 independent feature Chelsea Walls. In November 2007 Hawke directed his first play, Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Things We Want. Aside from acting, he has written two novels, The Hottest State (1996) and Ash Wednesday (2002).
Hawke’s film, The Woman in the Fifth – a thriller based on Douglas Kennedy’s novel – is directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and co-stars Kristin Scott Thomas. Hawke plays American writer Tom Ricks, who comes to Paris desperate to put his life together again and win back the love of his estranged wife and daughter. When things don’t go according to plan, he ends up in a shady hotel in the suburbs, having to work as a night guard to make ends meet. Then Margit (played by Thomas), a beautiful, mysterious stranger walks into his life and things start looking up. Their passionate and intense relationship triggers a string of inexplicable events… as if an obscure power was taking control of his life. Following the screening of The Woman in the Fifth, Joe Leydon will host a Q&A with Hawke, diving into the breadth of the actor/director/novelist’s career.
Finally, as part of the festivities surrounding Hawke’s appearance at the 2011 Cinema Arts Festival Houston, Hawke will receive the 2nd Annual Levantine Cinema Arts Award, which honors a leading actor, director, or other creative artist who has stretched the boundaries of cinematic expression throughout an illustrious film career. The award is sponsored by Levantine Entertainment, a new motion picture development, financing and production company aiming to provide U.S. and worldwide audiences with high quality, socially conscious, and character-driven films.
The third annual Cinema Arts Festival Houston will be held Nov. 9-13, 2011.
For more information, please visit HCAS at
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