Industry |
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Founded | 1995 |
Founder | |
Headquarters | , United States |
Website | Killer Films |
Killer Films is a New York City-based independent film production company founded in 1995 by film producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler. The company has produced many acclaimed independent films over the past two decades including Far From Heaven (nominated for four Academy Awards), Boys Don't Cry (Academy Award winner), One Hour Photo , Kids , Hedwig and the Angry Inch , Happiness , Velvet Goldmine , Safe , I Shot Andy Warhol , Swoon , I'm Not There (Academy Award nominated), Kill Your Darlings , Still Alice (Academy Award winner) and Carol (nominated for six Academy Awards). Killer Films also executive produced Todd Haynes' five episode HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce , which went on to win five Emmys, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
In 2014, Killer Films merged with Glass Elevator Media to form Killer Content, Inc. [1] Their logo consists of a rabbit with a dartboard for a body.
Killer Films productions have received multiple awards and nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Emmy Awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Independent Spirit Awards. On the occasion of Killer's 10th anniversary in 2005, the company was feted with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. [2]
Christine Vachon's first feature production, Poison, directed by Todd Haynes, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival. Poison was one of the defining films of the emerging New Queer Cinema. [3] [4] [5] For her work on Far From Heaven , another Todd Haynes collaboration, Vachon was honored by the New York Film Critics Circle, and received the Producer of the Year Award from the National Board of Review. [6]
Vachon produced the Showtime television adaptation of the public broadcasting radio program, This American Life, for which she won an Emmy. In 2011, Christine was invited to give the State of Cinema Address at the San Francisco Film Society's 54th San Francisco International Film Festival.
Vachon has also written two books on her life and career, Shooting to Kill (1998), [7] and A Killer Life (2006). [8]
One of Killer's most recent films, Kill Your Darlings, directed by John Krokidas, and starred Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan, was selected for the Sundance Film Festival and went on to be nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. [9] After producing Magic Magic, which debuted at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival to wide acclaim, Killer re-teamed with writer-director Sebastián Silva on his new feature, Nasty Baby . [10]
In 2015, Julianne Moore won the Best Performance by an Actress Oscar for her part in the 2014 Killer film Still Alice , directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer, based on the novel of the same name, written by Lisa Genova. [11] That same year, Killer re-teamed with director Todd Haynes on Carol , based on the 1952 romance novel, The Price of Salt , written by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. [12]
In 2017, the company produced Janicza Bravo's Lemon starring Brett Gelman and Judy Greer; [13] Beatriz at Dinner starring Salma Hayek and Chloë Sevigny; [14] and Dina directed by Dan Sickles & Antonio Santini, the latter of three winning the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. [15] [16]
In May 2017, the company signed a two-year first look deal with Amazon Studios. [17]
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
2005 | Mrs. Harris | TV movie Nominated for twelve Emmy Awards [93] |
2007–2009 | This American Life | TV series Won three Emmy Awards [94] |
2010 | The Neistat Brothers | TV series |
2011 | Mildred Pierce | TV miniseries Won five Emmy Awards [95] |
2015–2017 | Z: The Beginning of Everything | TV series |
2018–2019 | This Close | TV series |
2021 | Halston | TV miniseries |
2021 | Pride | TV miniseries |
Todd Haynes is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films span four decades with themes examining the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender roles.
Safe is a 1995 American psychological horror film written and directed by Todd Haynes and starring Julianne Moore. Set in 1987, it follows a suburban housewife in Los Angeles whose monotonous life is abruptly changed when she becomes sick with a mysterious illness which she believes is caused by the environment around her.
Todd Phillips is an American filmmaker. Phillips began his career in 1993 and directed films in the 2000s such as Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, and School for Scoundrels. He came to wider prominence in the early 2010s for directing The Hangover film series. In 2019, he co-wrote and directed the psychological thriller film Joker, based on the DC Comics character of the same name, which premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival where it received the top prize, the Golden Lion. Joker went on to earn Phillips three Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, with his co-writer Scott Silver, his second, third, and fourth Academy Award nominations after also being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Borat at the 79th Academy Awards.
Peter Biskind is an American cultural critic, film historian, journalist and former executive editor of Premiere magazine from 1986 to 1996.
Crime and Punishment in Suburbia is a 2000 American crime drama film directed by Rob Schmidt, written by Larry Gross, and starring Monica Keena, Vincent Kartheiser, Jeffrey Wright, James DeBello, Michael Ironside and Ellen Barkin. The film is a contemporary fable loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1866 novel Crime and Punishment, and focuses on a high school student who plots to murder her stepfather after he brutally rapes her.
Christine Vachon is an American film producer active in the American independent film sector.
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John Sloss is an entertainment lawyer, film sales agent, and manager, who has produced or executive produced over 50 films including the Academy Award-winning The Fog of War, Boys Don't Cry and Boyhood. Other credits include Bernie, City of Hope, Friends with Kids, A Scanner Darkly, Far From Heaven, and Before Sunrise.
Carol is a 2015 historical drama romance film directed by Todd Haynes. The screenplay by Phyllis Nagy is based on the 1952 romance novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, and Kyle Chandler. Set in 1950s New York City, the story is about a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce.
Elizabeth Karlsen is an American–British film producer. Her career has spanned over three and a half decades, and In 2019, she was awarded the BAFTA award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. Her work has garnered a total of 52 BAFTA nominations and wins, and 20 Academy Award® nominations and wins. In 2002, she co-founded Number 9 Films with production partner and husband, Stephen Woolley.
Wiener-Dog is a 2016 American anthology comedy film directed and written by Todd Solondz. Starring an ensemble cast led by Ellen Burstyn, Kieran Culkin, Julie Delpy, Danny DeVito, Greta Gerwig, Tracy Letts, and Zosia Mamet, the film serves as a spin-off from Solondz's 1995 film Welcome to the Dollhouse, which also features the character of Dawn Wiener. The film is also inspired by the 1966 French drama Au hasard Balthazar, directed by Robert Bresson.
Wonderstruck is a 2017 American mystery drama film directed by Todd Haynes, based on the 2011 novel Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick, who adapted the novel into the screenplay. The film stars Oakes Fegley, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, and Millicent Simmonds in her film debut.
Where Is Kyra? is a 2017 American drama film directed by Andrew Dosunmu with a screenplay by Darci Picoult and a story by Dosunmu and Picoult. The film stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Kiefer Sutherland.
Number 9 Films is a British independent film production company co-founded in 2002 by producers Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley, after a long collaboration at both Palace Pictures and Scala Productions. In 2018, Claudia Yusef joined the company as head of development.
Beatriz at Dinner is a 2017 comedy-drama film directed by Miguel Arteta and written by Mike White. An international co-production between the United States and Canada, it stars Salma Hayek, John Lithgow, Connie Britton, Jay Duplass, Amy Landecker, Chloë Sevigny, and David Warshofsky. It follows a holistic medicine practitioner who attends a wealthy client's dinner party after her car breaks down.
Janicza Bravo is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Her films include Gregory Go Boom, a winner of the short-film jury award at the Sundance Film Festival; Lemon, co-written with Brett Gelman; and Zola, co-written with playwright Jeremy O. Harris.
Lemon is an American comedy-drama film directed by Janicza Bravo in her feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Bravo and Brett Gelman. It stars Gelman, Judy Greer, Michael Cera, Shiri Appleby, Fred Melamed, Rhea Perlman, David Paymer, Gillian Jacobs, Jon Daly, Martin Starr, Megan Mullally, Jeff Garlin, Elizabeth De Razzo, Marla Gibbs and Nia Long.
Zola is a 2020 American black comedy crime film directed by Janicza Bravo and co-written by Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris. It is based on a viral Twitter thread from 2015 by A'Ziah "Zola" King and the resulting Rolling Stone article "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted" by David Kushner. Starring Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, and Colman Domingo, the film follows a part-time stripper who is convinced by her new friend to go on a road trip to Tampa, Florida to earn money dancing, only to get in over her head.
Pamela Koffler is an American film and television producer and founding partner of Killer Films, an independent New York-based production company she co-leads with Christine Vachon.
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