Gena Rowlands
Lake Arrowhead Film Festival’s Screen Legend Award

Screen legend Gena Rowlands is quite simply one of the finest and most honored actresses of her generation.  She has been nominated for numerous Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, and Golden Globe Awards – winning three Emmy’s and two Golden Globes.  But the impact of her work is much more far-reaching.  The truth is, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t be holding this festival – a celebration of independent filmmaking – if not for the groundbreaking work Ms. Rowlands did in conjunction with her late husband, director John Cassavetes, in the 1970’s.

“We, or John in particular, found that movies at the time weren’t examining a lot of stuff that we found interesting.” she recalls.  “We thought that others would find [these topics] interesting too.”

Career highlights during that period include her Oscar nominated performances in Gloria and the film that will screen at this year’s LAFF, A Woman Under the Influence.  In fact, her performance as Mabel Longhetti in A Woman Under the Influence is ranked as one of Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. 

“A Woman Under the Influence is definitely my favorite,” said Ms. Rowlands in a recent telephone interview.  “I thought John had an unusual understanding of and sympathy for women.  I think that was about 1974 and things were changing for women.”

Ms. Rowlands career came full circle in 2004 when she had the pleasure of working with her son, director Nick Cassavetes, on the hit film, The Notebook. “He’s very much like John in his attitude toward actors.  In his eyes, actors can do no wrong.  When a director really loves actors, it makes everything easy.”

Gena Rowlands has been making intimate, passionate, memorable portrayals of complex women look easy for over 50 years.   And she shows no sign of slowing down.  Next  up is an extraordinary film called Paris , je t’aime – an interwoven series of filmed segments created by over 20 internationally acclaimed directors and writers.  And one of those writers is Gena Rowlands. 

Ms. Rowlands will receive her award at the Filmmakers Award Luncheon, Sunday afternoon at 1:30 pm .