The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced that celebrated producer and director Ava DuVernay will be honored with the 2018 Visionary Award. DuVernay will accept the award at the 29th Annual Producers Guild Awards on Saturday, January 20, 2018 at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles.
The Producers Guild Visionary Award recognizes television, film, or new media producers for their unique or uplifting contributions to our culture through inspiring storytelling or performance.
DuVernay is being honored with the Visionary Award for her work in creating topical films and television shows focusing on important social issues such as “13th,” the riveting documentary about race in America for which she earned two Emmys and an Academy Award® nomination, as well as her critically acclaimed hit television series “Queen Sugar.” DuVernay is a fierce advocate for underrepresented filmmakers. In 2010, she founded ARRAY, a non-profit collective dedicated to the distribution and amplification of films by people of color and women filmmakers. DuVernay has broken down barriers throughout her Hollywood career–she was the first African-American woman director to have a film nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards with 2014’s “Selma,” as well as the first to earn the Best Director Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Her upcoming film Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” makes her the first African-American woman to direct a film budgeted over $100 million. The film will be released on March 8, 2018 and stars Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Storm Reid, Chris Pine and Zach Galifianakis.
Producers Guild Awards Chairs Donald De Line and Amy Pascal stated, “The emergence of Ava DuVernay as a producer and filmmaker has been one of the great developments of the past several years. Whether in scripted features, television or documentaries, her unique voice, skill and passion have inspired countless audiences throughout our country and around the world. She is, by any standard, a visionary storyteller, and we are excited to be honoring her as such in 2018.”
Previous honorees include: Oscar-nominated producer and founder of Annapurna Pictures Megan Ellison; Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner’s Plan B Entertainment; producer and founder of Illumination Entertainment Chis Meledandri; producer Laura Ziskin; and Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll.
California governor signs law to protect children from social media addiction
California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Friday.
California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children's access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.
The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users' personal information in ways that could harm children. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.
"Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night," Newsom said in a statement. "With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits."
The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children's accounts to private by default.
Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their... Read More