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Posts tagged as “DGA”

Spike Lee to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at 2022 Directors Guild Awards

Spike Lee to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at 2022 Directors Guild Awards

By goodblacknews on January 21, 2022

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee will be honored with the lifetime achievement award for his contributions to motion picture direction from the Directors Guild of America (DGA), according to Variety.com. The award is the organization’s top hono\.

“Icon. Trailblazer. Visionary. Spike Lee has changed the face of cinema, and there is no single word that encapsulates his significance to the craft of directing,” said Lesli Linka Glatter, president of the DGA. “From his groundbreaking Do the Right Thing, BlacKkKlansman and everything in between — to his signature ‘double dolly’ shot, Spike is an innovator on so many levels. His bold and passionate storytelling over the past three decades has masterfully entertained, as it held a stark mirror to our society and culture.”

New York University film school alum  Lee began his motion picture directing career by helming the independently produced She’s Gotta Have It, released in 1986, which in 2017 was adapted into a series for Netflix and in n 2019, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Some of Lee’s other notable films are School Daze, Mo Better Blues, Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, He Got Game, Clockers, Inside Man, Girl 6, Get on The Bus and his most recent release, Da 5 Bloods on Netflix.

Lee has also directed several award-winning documentaries, including 1997’s 4 Little Girls about the Alabama church bombings in 1963, and 2006’s When the Levees Broke, about Hurricane Katrina and the injustices and devastation it wrought on New Orleans and its Black and low-income communities.

Only 35 directors have been honored with the DGA lifetime achievement award since it started in 1953 (Cecil B. DeMille was the first recipient).

Lee is the first Black director to receive the award which will be given at the DGA’s 74th annual awards ceremony on March 12.

"12 Years A Slave" Director Steve McQueen Nominated for Director's Guild Award

By goodblacknews on January 7, 2014

steve mcqueenAccording to the Los Angeles Times, Steve McQueen, the 44-year-old British director, garnered his first Director’s Guild of American Award nomination for 12 Years a Slave, an unflinching look at slavery in the U.S.  McQueen is only the second black director to have received a DGA nomination in this category.  Lee Daniels was the first to earn a DGA nomination for feature film for 2009’s Precious. McQueen received best director honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and is nominated for Golden Globe and Independent Spirit awards.

Other nominees include Martin Scorsese, who earned his ninth DGA nomination for The Wolf of Wall Street, his controversial dark comedy starring Leonardo DiCaprio about a hedonistic stockbroker.  Scorsese, 71, received his first DGA feature nomination for 1976’s Taxi Driver, and won the honor for his 2006 crime film The Departed, which also starred DiCaprio.
Alfonso Cuaron, like McQueen, is also a first-time nominee, for his lost-in-space blockbuster Gravity. Cuaron, 52, was named best director by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. for the thriller and is nominated for a Golden Globe Award.  British filmmaker Paul Greengrass, 58, was nominated for Captain Phillips, a fact-based thriller about a container ship hijacked by Somali pirates. Greengrass is also nominated for a Golden Globe for his direction of the film.  Rounding out the DGA feature nominees is David O. Russell for his Abscam-influenced con-comedy American Hustle. Russell, 55, was nominated in this category for 2010’s The Fighter.  He is also nominated for a Golden Globe.
The winner will be announced at the 66th awards dinner on Jan. 25 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson

 

Paris Barclay Elected President of the Directors Guild

By goodblacknews on June 23, 2013

New DGA President Paris Barclay
New Directors Guild President Paris Barclay

TV director Paris Barclay (Sons of Anarchy, Glee, House) has been elected president of the Directors Guild of America for a two-year term, succeeding Taylor Hackford (Ray, Officer and a Gentleman) . Barclay was selected at the DGA’s convention on Saturday at DGA headquarters in Los Angeles. He’s the first African-American to serve as DGA president.
“I got surprisingly emotional about it when I was giving my acceptance speech,” Barclay told Variety. Hackford announced earlier this year that he would not seek a third term in accordance with the DGA tradition of presidents only serving two terms. The well-liked Barclay has served eight years as  First VP and six years as Third VP.
Barclay also told Variety that other DGA members such as Steven Soderbergh and former president Michael Apted have been urging him in recent years to consider becoming president. “As time went on, I began hearing that from more and more people,” he added.
Apted made the nomination Saturday and Soderberg seconded it.
Barclay asserted that he will maintain the tradition of the DGA president being a working director — in his case as the executive producer of the sixth season of “Sons of Anarchy.” Once that season’s shooting is completed, he plans to continue directing episodes of other series that interest him along with a feature film.