The 2024 San Luis Obispo International Film Festival is honoring actress/director Heather Graham with its King Vidor Award for Excellence in Filmmaking.
Graham will receive the award at an official ceremony on Saturday, April 27 at Hotel San Luis Obispo. A noon reception will be followed by a “Conversation with Heather Graham,” then a screening of Chosen Family. Graham wrote, directed and stars in the film, which is scheduled to be shown at 5 p.m. at the historic Fremont Theatre. All-Access passholders for this year’s festival may attend the King Vidor event with an RSVP in advance. A limited number of tickets also will be available for purchase.
Chosen Family made its world debut at the 2024 Santa Barbara Film Festival. Graham plays a yoga teacher who struggles with her chaotic family and dismal dating life while battling her inability to say no and fix everyone’s problems. Struggling to repair her estranged relationship with her sister (Julia Stiles), she relies on her friends (Andrea Savage, Thomas Lennon, and Odessa Rae) to be her rock and guide her through life’s troubling decisions.
Coming up in 2024, Graham is set to star opposite Tom Hopper in Place of Bones, directed by Audrey Cummings.
About Heather Graham
Graham discovered her passion for acting at an early age and caught the attention of filmmakers with her breakout role in Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy, for which she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination. She went on to land unforgettable roles in the 1997 classic Boogie Nights, for which she received the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance; in 1999’s Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me; and in 2009’s The Hangover alongside Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifinakis.
In 2023, Graham could be seen in a variety of films including The Other Zoey alongside Andie MacDowell and Patrick Fabian; Netflix’s holiday film Best Christmas Ever with Brandy Norwood, Jason Biggs and Matt Cedeño; Suitable Flesh, now streaming on Shudder, with Barbara Crampton; the horror film Oracle; and opposite Dennis Quaid in MGM & LightWorkers’ On a Wing and a Prayer. She also appeared in the Apple TV+ series Extrapolations.
Graham has expanded into writing, directing, and producing, proving herself to be a leading multi-hyphenate talent. Half Magic, a critically acclaimed film she wrote and directed, was released in theaters and on VOD in 2018.
“Heather Graham embodies unwavering support for the independent film industry, earning her status as a beloved icon whose presence we deeply treasure and admire,” according to SLOIFF Executive Director Skye McLennan. “We are honored with the privilege of not only acknowledging her remarkable contributions but also reveling in the spirit of this extraordinary woman.”
Graham has posted a video to Facebook about attending the festival and screening her new film.
About the King Vidor Award for Excellence in Filmmaking
King Vidor, a long-time resident of San Luis Obispo County, holds the record in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest career as a film director: beginning in 1913 with Hurricane in Galveston and ending in 1980 with a documentary called The Metaphor. In the course of his career, he directed 64 films, including War and Peace, The Fountainhead, and second-unit work on The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. He made the transition from silent to sound and from black-and-white to color film, and he was nominated for five Academy Awards. King Vidor lives on through this noble namesake presentation, bestowed each year on the industry’s most deserving honorees.
Past recipients of the King Vidor Award for Excellence in Filmmaking include Lawrence Kasdan, Pam Grier, Josh Brolin, Peter Bogdanovich, Jeff Bridges, Ann-Margret, Morgan Freeman, Eva Marie Saint, and Robert Wise, among many others.