• Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017
Ava DuVernay to receive 2018 Visionary Award from Producers Guild
Ava DuVernay
  • LOS ANGELES
  • --

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.


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