Pitt Film Studies Program to Screen The Queen April 14 With Award-Winning Director Stephen Frears Introducing the Film

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh Film Studies Program will feature a free public screening of The Queen at 6 p.m. April 14 with the film’s award-winning director Stephen Frears providing the introduction and Pitt Distinguished University Professor Colin MacCabe, head of research at the British Film Institute in London, moderating a postscreening Q&A session in Pitt’s Alumni Hall 7th-Floor Auditorium, 4227 Fifth Ave., Oakland.

One of the UK’s leading filmmakers, Frears is known for making provocative, stylized, and tightly budgeted films about people living on society’s social and/or sexual fringes. Regarding his propensity for exploring unfamiliar territory in his work, Frears has said that he likes “making films about different cultures...I’m interested in things that I’ve never encountered before. I try to put myself in the audience’s position.”

Born in Leicester, England, Frears studied law at Cambridge University before turning to the arts. He became involved with London’s Royal Court Theatre, where he served as an assistant to director Lindsay Anderson and to actor Albert Finney. He started his career in the film industry as an assistant director to Karel Reisz, with whom he worked from 1966 to 1972.

Scripted by Peter Morgan, The Queen (2006) takes a comic-yet-sympathetic look at the public relations nightmare following Princess Diana’s death in 1997. Bolstered by Helen Mirren’s Academy Award-winning performance as Queen Elizabeth II, the film enjoyed a healthy art-house run through the cinema awards season, when Frears found himself the recipient of best-director nominations from, among others, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association through its Golden Globe Awards, and the Directors Guild of America.

For more information, contact Vladimir Padunov at padunov@pitt.edu or Jennifer Florian at 412-624-6564 or visit the Film Studies Program Web site at www.filmstudies.pitt.edu.

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