David Droga, founder and creative chairman of Droga5, will be honored with the Lion of St. Mark award at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Droga is one of the most awarded creatives at Cannes Lions. He won his first Lion aged 19 and has achieved more than 70 Gold and 15 Grand Prix/Titanium Lions in his career to date.
“The Lion of St. Mark recognizes an individual who has made a significant and outstanding contribution to creativity in our industry,” said Jose Papa, managing director of Cannes Lions. “His drive, passion and unbounded creative skill has led him to deliver continual award-winning results. He’s set the global standard.”
Droga commented, “I have worked with more talented people and had more opportunities than one creative person deserves. The Lion of St. Mark honor is beyond my wildest ambitions. It’s incredible to be recognized with this, when you still feel you have so much more to do and prove. But I will soak it up with pride and humility.”
At 22, David Droga became a partner and executive creative director of OMON Sydney and in 1996, he moved to Singapore to become executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore and regional creative director of Saatchi Asia. At age 29, Droga was promoted to executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi London, and under his charge, they were awarded, for the first time, Agency of the Year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2002.
In 2003 Droga became the first-ever worldwide chief creative officer of the Publicis Network in New York. In less than two years, Publicis enjoyed a very public creative and new business renaissance around the world. Restless to launch his own agency, David founded Droga5 in New York City in 2006. In a little more than 10 years, Droga5 has seen unprecedented success and become one of the industry’s most revered and influential agencies, including earning back-to-back accolades as Cannes Lions Independent Agency of the Year in 2015 and 2016.
Droga will be presented with the Lion of St. Mark during the Festival awards ceremony on Saturday, June 24. Droga will also be speaking on the Cannes Lions stage on Friday, June 23.
Cannes Lions takes place from June 17-24 in Cannes, France.
Droga will join a roster of previous Lion of St. Mark winners, which consists of:
- 2016: Marcello Serpa, former partner, AlmapBBDO
- 2015: Bob Greenberg, founder, chairman and CEO, R/GA
- 2014: Joe Pytka, director, PYTKA
- 2013: Lee Clow, chairman, TBWAMedia Arts Lab, director of Media Arts, TBWAWorldwide
- 2012: Dan Wieden, co-founder and global executive creative director, Wieden+Kennedy
- 2011: Sir John Hegarty, worldwide creative director, founder, BBH
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More