Alum Lisa Cholodenko Receives Honorary Doctorate from Academy of Art

SF WEEKLY -- At the Castro Theatre last week, Academy of Art University capped off its Media Awards with an honorary doctorate for writer-director Lisa Cholodenko. Role-model-wise, she seems like an excellent choice. Working in a fertile middle ground between art-house sophistication and mainstream approachability, Cholodenko’s work often stays uniquely true to the awkwardly funny aspects of sexual omnivorousness — and to her own slyly brave attitude that movies about non-straight characters can include more than stories of tragic martyrdom. “Yeah, I was a student at SF State, and I honestly didn’t know where I was headed. I thought maybe something in the social sciences,” she says. “But I happened to be living with a group of people, and one person was a film student. I was always keen on and aware of what she was doing. I didn’t really make the connection that you could turn that into a career. But I got exposed to art-house cinema and foreign films.”