Academy Award-winning producer Edward Zwick will receive the Cinema Audio Society Filmmaker Award at the 50th Annual CAS Awards on February 22 at the Crystal Ballroom of the Millennium-Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles.
“It seems fitting that in celebration of 50 years of the CAS we are honoring Edward Zwick, a producer/director/writer of both award winning film and television,” said CAS president David E. Fluhr. “His projects on both the big and small screen have consistently demonstrated a commitment to quality in story and craft, particularly sound. In continuing the CAS tradition of synergy between our two honorees, Zwick our Filmmaker Honoree and Andy Nelson, CAS our Career Achievement Honoree, have collaborated on five film projects including the CAS and Oscar-nominated Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai. Edward Zwick is an excellent choice and the CAS is honored to have him as our CAS Filmmaker Honoree.”
As a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute in 1975, Edward Zwick’s award-winning short film Timothy and the Angel caught the attention of the producers of the television series, Family, where he then served as story editor and subsequently became a director and producer. His work on the television movie Special Bulletin (as director, producer and co-writer) earned him two Emmy Awards and a Humanitas Award. It also marked the beginning of his collaboration with Marshall Herskovitz, with whom he created the Emmy Award-winning television series, thirtysomething. Together Herskovitz and Zwick formed The Bedford Falls Company as their home for film and television projects, including the critically acclaimed television series My So-called Life, Relativity and the Emmy Award and Golden Globe award winning series Once and Again.
Zwick began his feature film career directing About Last Night. He went on to direct the Academy Award-winning films Glory and Legends of the Fall. Besides directing the previously mentioned The Last Samurai and Blood Diamond, Zwick and Nelson worked together on Zwick’s Love and Other Drugs, Defiance and Courage Under Fire.
Together with Herskovitz, Zwick also produced the Academy Award-nominated film I am Sam, as well as Traffic — winner of two Golden Globes and four Academy Awards– directed by Steven Soderbergh. Zwick most recently directed and produced, Pawn Sacrifice starring Tobey Maguire, Liev Schreiber, Michael Stuhlbarg and Peter Sarsgaard.
As a producer of the Best Picture Shakespeare in Love, Zwick received an Academy Award. He has also been honored with three Emmy Awards, two Humanitas Prizes, three Writer’s Guild of America Awards, two Peabody Awards, a Director’s Guild of America Award, and the Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Award from the American Film Institute.
Zwick will be the 9th CAS Filmmaker Honoree. Past honorees have been: Quentin Tarantino, Gil Cates, Bill Condon, Paul Mazursky, Henry Selick, Taylor Hackford, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Demme.
Nelson will be the 32nd CAS Career Achievement Award Honoree. Past honorees include Ray Dolby, Robert Altman, Jack Solomon, John Bonner, Bill Varney, Don Rogers, Walter Murch, Jim Webb, Richard Portman, Tomlinson Holman, Mike Minkler, Ed Greene, Dennis Sands, Dennis L. Maitland, Sr., Randy Thom. Jeffrey S. Wexler, Scott Millan and Chris Newman.
The 50th CAS Awards dinner will also honor Outstanding Achievements in Sound Mixing in six categories: Motion Pictures, Animated Motion Pictures, Television Movies and Mini- Series, Television Series-One Hour, Television Series-Half Hour, Television-Non-Fiction, Variety or Music Series or Specials. The winners of the CAS Technical Achievement Awards for Production and Post-Production will also be announced at the dinner.
