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Sam Pillsbury | |
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| Occupation(s) | Director, producer |
Sam Pillsbury is an American film director, producer, and winemaker.[1]
Massachusetts-raised Sam Pillsbury immigrated toNew Zealand at the age of 14. At age 23 he began working for the government-ownedNational Film Unit of New Zealand, joining a group of emerging filmmakers who were investigating new subjects and creative film making styles.
Pillsbury directed seven films at the National Film Unit, including a multi-faceted study of artistRalph Hotere, andMen and Supermen, a satirical look at workplace relations. He was also part of the directing team on theCommonwealth Games chronicleGames '74, and worked both on set and at the editing bench forPaul Maunder'sGone Up North for a While.
Pillsbury embarked on a solo career in 1975. His documentary,Birth with R.D. Laing, garnered awards in both Australia and New Zealand, while also generating controversy in England and the United States. The film prominently showcased the outspoken Scottish psychiatrist,R.D. Laing, as he critiqued the Western medical approach to childbirth. Pillsbury also worked on four documentaries for TV programmeSeven Days, which variously looked into life for a solo mother, an ex-convict, hospital patients, and youngMāori in the city.
Pillsbury made his dramatic debut in 1978, with the short dramaAgainst the Lights. Based on aWiti Ihimaera short story, it examined an attack on a Māori taxi driver from multiple points of view. Pillsbury's 1980 short documentary,The Greatest Run on Earth, captured the 1980 edition of Auckland's Round the Baysfun run, and won awards at festivals in Chicago andTurin.
In 1981 Pillsbury directed his first feature, the horror filmThe Scarecrow, known asKlynham Summer in America. Based on thegothic novel byRonald Hugh Morrieson, the film chronicles the arrival in a nineteen-fifties town of a murderous stranger (played by American film legendJohn Carradine), and the two teenage boys who inadvertently get in his way. In 1982, it became the first New Zealand film accepted toCannes Film Festival, in the non-competitive Director's Fortnight section.
Pillsbury bought the rights to and worked extensively on ascreen adaptation of apocalyptic sci-fi novelThe Quiet Earth, before handing the project to directorGeoff Murphy. Pillsbury directed a miniseries adaptation of the 1880s immigrant taleHeart of the High Country, based on a novel by Elizabeth Gowans, in which Scottish actressValerie Gogan played an immigrant servant stuck in New Zealand. His next film was the period road movieStarlight Hotel, which starredGreer Robson as a teenage runaway exploring 1930s New Zealand with an unemployed man played byPeter Phelps. Though poorly distributed, it was met with acclaim byLos Angeles Times criticKevin Thomas.[2]
After directing two episodes of theFox legal dramaAgainst the Law in 1990, Pillsbury made his American feature debut with the erotic thrillerZandalee, starringNicolas Cage,Judge Reinhold, andErika Anderson. Releasedstraight to video byLive Home Video in 1991, it received negative reviews.[3]
FollowingZandalee's financial and critical failure, Pillsbury began a period of directing Americantelevision films, includingInto the Badlands (1991),Eyes of Terror (1994),Sins of Silence (1996), andA Mother's Instinct, before returning to the silver screen in 1997 withFree Willy 3: The Rescue. Though a financial failure, the film received some positive reviews, including from criticRoger Ebert, who praised the film for returning "to some of the human elements that made the first movie so good."[4] In 1998, Pillsbury directedKirsten Dunst in theLifetime television filmFifteen and Pregnant.
He returned to New Zealand in 2000 to directCrooked Earth, about aMāori soldier, played byTemuera Morrison who returns home after twenty years to bury his chieftain father; in the process he clashes with his militant drug-dealing brother, played byLawrence Makoare, over who fill their fathers' shoes. Pillsbury returned to America to direct the 2003Disney filmWhere The Red Fern Grows and the 2009 road movieEndless Bummer.
Pillsbury has a second career as a winemaker. In 2000 he and a business partner planted a vineyard in Cochise County, Arizona, and in 2006 sold it to a group headed byMaynard James Keenan. Pillsbury Wine Company was launched soon afterwards, with his new vineyard & tasting room across the road in Willcox, Arizona, and a tasting room in Old Town Cottonwood, Arizona.[5]
Pillsbury Wine has earned several national awards including Gold Medals in the Jefferson Cup, and several Double Gold Medals in the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.[6]
Pillsbury's wife is the daughter of sculptorGeny Dignac.[7]
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