Fridae Presents: A SINGLE MAN - Fundraising Gala Premiere

Julianne Moore

Charley

Julianne Moore, four-time Oscar nominee, and only the ninth person in Academy Award history to receive two acting Oscar nominations in the same year ['Far From Heaven' and 'The Hours'] has also garnered Best Actress awards from the National Board of Review, Los Angeles Film Critics, Broadcast Film Critics, and the Independent Spirit Awards. Moore is the recipient of a Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Excellence in Media Award and was honored with a "Tribute to Independent Vision" at the Sundance Film Festival.

Matthew Goode

Jim

Matthew Goode most recently starred in Zack Snyder's 'Watchmen'; co-starred in Woody Allen's 'Match Point'; and portrayed protagonist Charles Ryder in Julian Jarrold's adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited.' Goode is currently at work on Ricky Gervais' CEMETERY JUNCTION, co-starring with Ralph Fiennes, and just finished the romantic comedy, LEAP YEAR, starring opposite Amy Adams.

Nicholas Hoult

Kenny

Since making his name in the 2002 blockbuster 'About A Boy' in which he played a nerdy 12-year-old alongside Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult has gone on to work in a variety of film and TV roles. Hoult is currently filming the 'Clash Of The Titans,' alongside Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson.

Tom Ford

Director, Producer, Writer

Tom Ford was born in Austin, Texas on August 27, 1961. He was raised in Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ford attended New York University and Parsons School of Design where he studied art history and architecture.

Tom Ford is best known for his work as a fashion designer and is credited with reviving the fashion houses of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent through influential collections and provocative advertising campaigns that turned Gucci Group into one of the largest and most profitable luxury fashion conglomerates in the world. Ford left Gucci Group in 2004 and founded his film production company, Fade To Black, as well as his eponymous fashion company in 2005. Tom Ford's success in the fashion industry has been recognized by numerous awards including: five awards from the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America [CFDA], five VH-1/Vogue Fashion Awards and the Fashion Design Achievement Award at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum's National Design Awards. In March 2007, Tom Ford was honored with the Vito Russo Award from GLAAD. Ford lives in London and Los Angeles.

Director's Statement
"I first read the book "A Single Man" by Christopher Isherwood in the early 1980s and was moved by the honesty and simplicity of the story. At that time, I was in my early twenties. Three years ago, after searching for the right project to develop as my first film it occurred to me that I often thought of this novel and it's protagonist, 'George.' I picked it up and read it again. Now in my late forties, the book resonated with me in an entirely different way. It is a deeply spiritual story, of one day in the life of a man who cannot see his future. It is a universal tale of coming to terms with the isolation that we all feel, and of the importance of living in the present and understanding that the small things in life are really the big things in life."

Christopher Isherwood

Author

A Single Man is an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel of the same title. Set in Los Angeles in 1962, it depicts one day in the life of George, a middle-aged gay Englishman grieving for the love of his life, who died eight months earlier in a car accident.

The late English-born novelist (1904 - 1986) lived in Berlin, Germany for four years and moved around Europe before emigrating to the United States in 1939 and becoming an American citizen in 1946.

Isherwood is considered a pioneer in the gay liberation movement, for having "created gay characters whose homosexuality is a simple given, an integral part of the wholeness of personality and an emblem of their common humanity," reads a profile of the author on glbtq.com, a online resource site.

Excerpt from glbtq.com:
"The need for community is also an issue in A Single Man (1964), Isherwood's masterpiece.

"By associating the mistreatment of homosexuals with the discrimination suffered by other minorities in America, Isherwood legitimizes the grievances of gay people at a time when homosexuals were not recognized either as a genuine minority or as valuable members of the human community. Presaging the gay liberation movement, A Single Man presents homosexuality as simply a human variation that should be accorded value and respect and depicts homosexuals as a group whose grievances should be redressed.

"More forthrightly than any other major writer of his generation, Isherwood embraced the contemporary gay liberation movement. That allegiance was altogether appropriate, for his novels - all written before the Stonewall riots that traditionally date the beginning of the movement--incorporate gay liberation perspectives, especially the need for solidarity among homosexuals and the recognition of homosexuals as an aggrieved minority.

"Isherwood's greatest achievement, however, is in creating gay characters - preeminently George in A Single Man--whose homosexuality is a simple given, an integral part of the wholeness of personality, and in placing those characters in situations and contexts where their homosexuality functions as an emblem of their common humanity."

To read the full profile of Christopher Isherwood, click here