Pop the cork on a bottle of Chianti. Today we are celebrating the news that the director behind one of our favorite cinema villains of all time will be joining us at the Los Angeles Film Festival. On Sunday, June 14, Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme will be on hand to give us a special sneak peek at his much anticipated upcoming film Ricki and the Flash, written by Diablo Cody and starring Meryl Streep as an aging rock star with a lifetime of regrets. The man whose body of work includes Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Stop Making Sense and Something Wild will join Film Independent Curator Elvis Mitchell to discuss the seminal moments of his career—we’re hoping for a Hannibal Lechter story or two.

In honor of the occasion, here are three reasons we can’t wait to hear what the iconoclastic director has to say about filmmaking.

1. Stop Making Sense stands the test of time. More than three decades ago, Demme recognized the cinematic nature of the great David Byrne and convinced the rocker to collaborate on the film that many say to this day is the greatest live music film ever made. On the occasion of the film’s 30th anniversary, Time magazine wrote: “Stop Making Sense was a true collaboration between the two men, with each contributing their own aesthetic ideas about music, cinematography and stagecraft into a cohesive whole of avant-garde rock-and-roll theater.”

2. He directed Melanie Griffith in one of her greatest roles. As Lulu, a free-spirited sex machine, she kidnaps yuppie business man Charlie (Jeff Daniels) for a weekend of adventure in Something Wild.  As the late, great Roger Ebert wrote in his review, “Demme is a master of finding the bizarre in the ordinary.”

3. He turned the world onto the brilliance of Anthony Hopkins. Since its release, Silence of the Lambs has been considered the most taut psychological thriller ever made. The film swept the big five Academy Awards: Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture—and thanks to the savvy casting of Hopkins as the cannibalistic serial killer, turned Hannibal Lechter into a household name. Demme wanted the British actor, after having seen his performance as the gentle Dr. Treves in The Elephant Man. When Hopkins found this out he reportedly questioned the director, saying “But Dr. Treves was a good man.” To which Demme is said to have replied “So is Lechter, he is a good man too. Just trapped in an insane mind.”

Pamela Miller / Website & Grants Manager

Tickets and passes are on sale now for all the Festival films and special events including two newly announced live musical performances as part of our Music in Film at the Grammy Museum series: one featuring electronic music pioneer Brian Transeau, (better known as BT), and the other with former Fugee great Pras Michel (and friends!) in celebration of his documentary Sweet Micky for President.