The San Francisco Chronicle
MAY 5, 1998, TUESDAY, FINAL EDITION


HEADLINE: With One Job On Ice, Gund Rejoins Festival


Just hours after the San Jose Sharks were eliminated from the National Hockey League playoffs, team owner George Gund III was squeezing oranges in the kitchen of his Cow Hollow home. He kept going until there was enough juice for everyone at the brunch he and his wife, Iara Lee, threw Sunday to celebrate the Bay Area premiere of "Modulations" -- her documentary about machine-made music -- at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

It's not as if Gund, scion of a family whose worth Forbes magazine has put at $ 2.1 billion, can't afford help. "Nobody can do it the way I do," he explained.

Gund, 60, also has a knack for mixing seemingly divergent interests such as hockey and international cinema. The only good thing about the Sharks' loss is that Gund, chairman of the film festival's board of directors, will be able to attend the last days of the festival.

While guests helped themselves to scrambled eggs and fruit on the terrace, Lee talked about how she first met Gund at the Munich film festival in 1988. Her job as a programmer for the Sao Paulo festival took her to film festivals around the world. "Every one I was at, George was there. He's a film festival junkie," she said, laughing.

When they married five years ago, "I'm sure people raised their eyebrows because of our age difference," said Lee, who at 32 is 28 years younger than her husband. But they appear happy, bonded in part by their love of film, which has now expanded to making films together.

With "Modulations" and her first documentary, "Synthetic Pleasures" (about how technology has made artificial realities possible), Lee has become a chronicler of "the lifestyles of the hip and happening," as one film critic put it. But she doubts that she would be a filmmaker if it weren't for her husband.

Not only has he helped finance both films, on which he is listed as producer, "but he's also been a tremendous psychological support," Lee said. "Sometimes I get discouraged. It's hard to get acceptance for the kind of films I make. But for George, difficulties just make him stronger. It's not about immediate acceptance. He's always looking to the future."

"Modulations" shows at 4:15 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Kabuki.