Victor Nuñez

Victor Nunez (born 1945) is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project and Sundance Film Festival. He is best known for directing the critically acclaimed films '' A Flash of Green'', '' Ruby in Paradise'' and ''Ulee's Gold''. In 2008, Nunez was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

Early life

Nunez was born in 1945 in New York City. Nunez and his family then moved to Peru, and then moving again to Haines City, Florida, with his mother after his parents' divorce. They moved again to Tallahassee, Florida, when Nunez reached the third grade. He received his undergraduate degree from Antioch College. He briefly attended the AFI Conservatory before transferring to UCLA Film School.

Career

Short films

At Antioch College, Nunez made his first fictional shorts, "Fairground" (1968) and "Taking Care of Mother Baldwin" (1970). At UCLA Film School, where he received his MFA for his thesis film, "Charly Benson's Return to the Sea" (1972), going on to make another short, "A Circle in the Fire" (1974).

Feature films

Nunez made his feature debut with '' Gal Young Un'', which premiered at the 1979 New York Film Festival. The film, based on the short story by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, centers on a spinster woman who lives alone in the woods of north Florida until she is swept off her feet by an opportunistic bootlegger, Trax. He marries her for her place and her daddy's money and her cooking and cleaning, which she freely shares. Inevitably, he shows his true colors in a variety of ways. One day Trax brings home a very young woman with clear intentions of keeping her as a mistress (a gal young 'un) in the older woman's house. Business takes him elsewhere and the two women are left alone in the woods together to come to terms with their shared exploitation by Trax.

Vincent Canby writing in the ''New York Times'' called ''Gal Young Un "''An astonishingly good first feature''."''

The film was seminal in the early movement of American Independent Cinema, with Emanuel Levy stating,
"Victor Nunez's first feature, ''Gal Young Un'', which he wrote, directed, shot, and edited, helped to shape regional cinema within the larger independent movement. The period details are striking, particularly Nunez' camera work.

Following ''Gal Young Un'', Nunez began working on an adaptation of John D. MacDonald's novel '' A Flash of Green''.
The film, starring Ed Harris, premiered at the 1984 New York Film Festival. Its plot is about saving an unspoiled bay from greedy developers, and ending with a story about a man trying to save himself from his own greed.
Vincent Canby wrote:

Nunez had to wait eight years before starting production on his next film '' Ruby in Paradise''. He self-financed the film with 350,000 dollars left to him from an aunt. left, Ashley Judd & Todd Field in Nuñez's ''Ruby in Paradise''
The film starred Ashley Judd, in her first leading role, and also future Academy nominated filmmaker Todd Field. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival.

Roger Ebert wrote:

The success of Ruby allowed Nunez to make another film quickly, and this time with a major studio, and in 1997 he came out with the Academy Award nominated film ''Ulee's Gold'' starring Peter Fonda.
In ''Ulees Gold'', Peter Fonda plays Ulee (short for Ulysses) Jackson, a Vietnam veteran, widower and grandfather. He is a beekeeper by profession, who raises two granddaughters, Jessica Biel and Vanessa Zima, because his son, Tom Wood, is in prison and his daughter-in-law Christine Dunford, a drug addict, has run away. Fonda was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

In 2016, Nunez was made a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said, "There is a quality about this film's use of deliberation that comes at times wonderfully close to magic."

In 2022 Nunez started production on Rachel Hendrix starring Lori Singer.
''Rachel Hendrix'' premiered at the 2023 Santa Barbara Film Festival. In his Hollywood Reporter review Stephen Farber wrote:

Directing techniques

Ahead of Nunez's 2023 American Cinematheque retrospective Jim Hemphill of IndieWire wrote:

"Victor Nunez may be the best director most people never heard of — but Stanley Kubrick and Ava DuVernay have." Hemphill goes on to talk about why not only directors, but actors like Josh Brolin and Todd Field admire Nunez as a filmmaker.

Sundance Film Festival

Nunez is one of the founding members of the Utah/US Film Festival which was renamed the Sundance Film Festival in 1991.

Filmography

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nunez, Victor
UCLA Film School alumni
Film directors from Florida
Florida State University faculty
Living people
1945 births
American people of Puerto Rican descent
Sundance Film Festival award winners