Directors Guild of America President Paris Barclay, president of the Directors Guild of America, has announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentaries for 2013. Four of the filmmakers are first-time nominees; the other has landed her third career nomination and is a past DGA Award winner.
“The five documentary filmmakers nominated today have made powerful films exploring humanity in all its complications,” said Barclay. “From intricate family portrayals to lives caught in political upheaval, these works are intimate, heartbreaking and triumphant. My congratulations to each of the nominees.”
The winner will be named at the 66th Annual DGA Awards Dinner on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The nominees are (in alphabetical order):
Zachary Heinzerling
Cutie and the Boxer
Radius TWC
Ex Lion Tamer
Cine Mosaic
This is Mr. Heinzerling’s first DGA Award nomination.
Jehane Noujaim
The Square
Netflix
Participant Media
Noujaim Films
Maktube Productions
WorldView
Roast Beef Productions
This is Ms. Noujaim’s third DGA Award nomination. She won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for Startup.com in 2001 (together with Chris Hegedus) and was also nominated in this category in 2004 for Control Room.
Joshua Oppenheimer
The Act of Killing
Final Cut for Real APS
Drafthouse Films
Piraya Films
Novaya Zemlya Ltd.
Spring Films Ltd.
This is Mr. Oppenheimer’s first DGA Award nomination.
Sarah Polley
Stories We Tell
Roadside Attractions
The National Film Board of Canada
This is Ms. Polley’s first DGA Award nomination.
Lucy Walker
The Crash Reel
HBO Documentary Films
KP Rides Again, LLC
Impact Partners
Tree Tree Tree Production
This is Ms. Walker’s first DGA Award nomination.
In NBC’s “Brilliant Minds,” Zachary Quinto Plays Doctor–In A Role Inspired By Physician/Author Oliver Sacks
There's a great moment in the first episode of the new NBC medical drama "Brilliant Minds" when it becomes very clear that we're not dealing with a typical TV doctor.
Zachary Quinto is behind the wheel of a car barreling down a New York City parkway, packed with hospital interns, abruptly weaving in and out of lanes, when one of them asks, "Does anyone want to share a Klonopin?" — a drug sometimes used to treat panic disorders.
"Oh, glory to God, yes, please," says Quinto, reaching an arm into the back seat. The intern then breaks the pill in half and gives a sliver to the driver, who swallows it, as the other interns share stunned looks.
Quinto, playing the character Dr. Oliver Wolf, is clearly not portraying any dour, by-the-rules doctor here — he's playing a character inspired by Dr. Oliver Sacks, the path-breaking researcher and author who rose to fame in the 1970s and was once called the "poet laureate of medicine."
"He was someone who was tirelessly committed to the dignity of the human experience. And so I feel really grateful to be able to tell his story and to continue his legacy in a way that I hope our show is able to do," says Quinto.
He's a fern-loving doctor
"Brilliant Minds" takes Sack's personality — a motorcycle-riding, fern-loving advocate for mental health who died in 2015 at 82 — and puts him in the present day, where the creators theorize he would have no idea who Taylor Swift is or own a cell phone. The series debuts Monday on NBC, right after "The Voice."
"It's almost as if we're imagining what it would have been like if Oliver Sacks had been born at a different time," says Quinto. "We use the real life person as our North Star through everything we're doing and all the... Read More