Princeton University

Nassau notes

Filmmaker talks about her work

Christine Vachon, founder of and partner in Killer Films, will discuss her work at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 1, in the Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau St.

The independent company has produced more than 30 films, including “Far From Heaven,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Kids,” “One Hour Photo” and “Happiness.”

For more than a decade, Killer Films has produced films for directors as diverse as Todd Haynes, Kimberly Peirce, Todd Solondz, Robert Altman, Mary Harron, Larry Clark and John Waters. The company’s movies have been nominated for seven Academy Awards, most famously when Hilary Swank won the Best Actress Oscar in 1999 for “Boys Don’t Cry.” This fall, the Museum of Modern Art marked the 10th anniversary of the company—now headed by Vachon, Pamela Koffler and Katie Roumel—with a retrospective.

Killer’s history began in 1991, when Vachon produced Haynes’ first feature, “Poison.” The film won the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was thrust into the limelight when Sen. Jesse Helms and the far right protested the National Endowment for the Arts’ involvement in the film. Over the years, the New York-based company has continued its commitment to produce visionary films without shrinking from controversy.

When Killer was officially founded in 1995, it took its name from artist Cindy Sherman’s debut feature, the slasher film send-up “Office Killer.” Other company highlights include Solondz’s seminal portrait of dysfunction in suburban America, “Happiness”; John Cameron Mitchell’s gender-bending rock odyssey, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”; Haynes’ homage to 1950 melodrama, “Far From Heaven,” featuring actress Julianne Moore, which was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2002; and the company’s biggest financial success, Mark Romanek’s “One Hour Photo,” starring Robin Williams.

2006 will see the release of three new Killer films. “Mrs. Harris,” based on the true-life Scarsdale diet doctor murder, stars Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley and is directed by Phyllis Nagy. Mary Harron reteams with Killer on “The Notorious Bettie Page,” a look into the life of the ’50s pin-up icon starring Gretchen Mol. In “Infamous,” director Douglas McGrath explores Truman Capote’s relationship with convicted killer Perry Smith as he writes his groundbreaking nonfiction novel, “In Cold Blood.” British theater favorite Toby Jones leads a cast including Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, Isabella Rossellini and Gwyneth Paltrow.

In addition to earning Academy Award nominations, Vachon, her company and its films have received numerous other honors including top prizes from the Sundance, Venice, Cannes and Berlin film festivals.

Vachon’s book, “Shooting to Kill: How an Independent Producer Blasts Through the Barriers to Make Movies That Matter,” was published by Avon in the fall 1998 and was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. Her second book, “A Killer Life: How An Independent Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond,” will be published in fall 2006 by Simon and Schuster.

The event, slated as the John Sacret Young ’69 Lecture, is being organized by the Program in Visual Arts.

Cyprus official looks ahead to country’s future

Euripides Evriviades, Cyprus’ ambassador to the United States, will discuss his country’s future in a lecture set for 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 1, in 16 Robertson Hall.

Evriviades’ lecture is titled “Cyprus in the European Union: Prospects for Reunification, Peace with Turkey and Regional Stability.”

Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines since Turkey invaded the island in 1974. The Greek Cypriot government is internationally recognized and has represented Cyprus in the E.U. since 2004, but only controls the southern part of the island. The Greek Cypriots rejected a United Nations peace plan in 2004.

Prior to his appointment to the United States, Evriviades served as Cyprus’ ambassador to the Netherlands and Israel. He also has held positions at Cypriot embassies in Libya, Russia and Germany.

The lecture is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as part of a series of events celebrating the school’s 75th anniversary.

Guantanamo advocate discusses case

Sabin Willett, a lawyer seeking the release of a group of Chinese nationals held in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will deliver a talk titled “Who’s at Guantanamo?” at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, in 16 Robertson Hall.

Willett, a Boston attorney, is acting as a pro bono representative for a group of Turkic-speaking Muslims, known as “Uighurs,” who fled Communist Chinese rule and have been imprisoned for three years at Guantanamo. A federal judge ruled in December that the Bush administration’s detention of the Uighurs was illegal but that the court does not have the power to free them.

Willett is a partner in the firm of Bingham McCutchen, specializing in commercial and bankruptcy litigation. He also is the author of several legal novels.

The lecture is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Faculty members to explore turning points in history in month-long series

A distinguished group of Princeton historians will speak about events, people or eras that have played key roles in shaping the modern world during a four-session lecture series in March.

Titled “Turning Points in History,” the series is free and open to members of the University community. Each lecture will begin at 5:30 p.m. in 10 East Pyne.

The talks will cover a range of topics and time periods, with each faculty member interpreting the theme according to his or her own background and research interests.

Here is the schedule:

• Wednesday, March 1—“1930: Did It Shake Things Up?” with Jeremy Adelman, the Walter Samuel Carpenter III Professor in Spanish Civilization and Culture and chair of the Department of History.

• Wednesday, March 8—“The Collapse of the Ottoman Empire” with Molly Greene, associate professor of history.

• Wednesday, March 15—“The Scientific Revolution in Early Modern Europe” with Michael Mahoney, professor of history.

• Wednesday, March 29—“Crossing the Rubicon: Lyndon Johnson and the Decision for War in Vietnam” with Paul Miles, lecturer in history.

The series is presented by the Office of the Alumni Association. For more information, contact Kaitlin Lutz at klutz@princeton.edu or 258-0014.

World Wildlife Fund head here

Carter Roberts, head of the World Wildlife Fund, will discuss “Conservation in a Code-Orange World: Why the Environment Matters to Security” at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 28, in 16 Robertson Hall.

Roberts was named president and chief executive officer of World Wildlife Fund in 2005 after a year as the Washington, D.C.-based organization’s chief conservation officer. He previously spent 15 years at The Nature Conservancy, leading the group’s conservation programs in Latin America and in the United States.

Roberts is a member of Princeton’s class of 1982. His lecture is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy.

Water resource expert to speak

A lecture titled “In Search of a National Water Policy: Learning From Katrina, Dry Canals and Pallid Sturgeon” is set for 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 1, in McCosh 50.

Gerald Galloway, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland, will examine the issues surrounding water resource management, specifically as they relate to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, conflicts over water use in major river basins and the decline of species such as the Pacific salmon.

Galloway, a former Army Corps brigadier general and former dean at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, has testified before several congressional committees and has been quoted frequently since Katrina on the rebuilding of New Orleans and the need for a national flood plan.

The event, designated as a Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture, is sponsored by University Public Lecture Series.

Lecture focuses on judicial power

Political scientist Robert Lowry Clinton will examine the Supreme Court’s power to interpret the Constitution in a lecture scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, in 104 Computer Science Building.

The lecture, titled “John Marshall and the Myth of Marbury,” will look at the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, which was established in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison. Clinton is the author of “Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review,” which challenges widely held assumptions about the seminal case and the origins of constitutional judicial review.

Clinton is chair of the Department of Political Science at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. He is working on a history of the Marshall Court.

The talk is part of the Alpheus Mason Lectures in Constitutional Law and Political Thought sponsored by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Firestone Library’s Milberg Gallery

“Die Prinzessin und der Schweinhirt” (The Princess and the Swineherd), illustrated by Heinrich Lefler, is among the classic works of Hans Christian Andersen on display through March 26 at Firestone Library’s Milberg Gallery. The illustrated editions by a number of artists who have interpreted Andersen’s fairy tales are part of an exhibition, “Wonderful Stories for Pictures: Hans Christian Andersen and His Illustrators,” mounted by the Cotsen Children’s Library in honor of the bicentennial of the author’s birth. Among other exhibited books, which were published between 1890 and 2005, are illustrated editions of “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Red Shoes” and “The Nightingale.”