Spike Lee, winner of an honorary Oscar in 2016 and three years later a Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award for BlacKkKlansman, will receive the esteemed Trailblazer Award from the Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) at the 7th Annual LMGI Awards celebrating the theme “2020 Vision: We See It First.” The 2020 Awards, hosted by Isaiah Mustafa, will honor the spectrum of Lee’s extraordinary award-winning work over the past three decades on Saturday, October 24 at 2:00 PM PST during a virtual ceremony.
Awards co-chair and former LMGI president Lori Balton commented, “We are especially grateful that Mr. Lee has brought so much diverse talent into the industry. Actors like Samuel Jackson, Rosie Perez and Giancarlo Esposito, but also so many of us working behind the scenes–Wynn Thomas, Ruth Carter, Ernest Dickerson and Brent Owens to name a few. He is a Trailblazer on a number of levels.”
Lee is an award-winning film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. Lee’s work has continually explored race relations, colorism in the Black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. He has won numerous accolades for his work, including a BAFTA Award, two Emmy® Awards, two Peabody Awards, and the Cannes Grand Prix. He has also received an honorary BAFTA Award, an honorary César, and The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, among many others.
Lee made his directorial debut in 1986 with She’s Gotta Have It and has since written and directed such films as Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, He Got Game, 25th Hour, Inside Man, Chi-Raq, BlacKkKlansman and, most recently, Da 5 Bloods. Lee also acted in 10 of his films.
Lee’s films Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, 4 Little Girls and She’s Gotta Have It were each selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
Final online balloting for the LMGI Awards will be held August 1-10, 2020 and winners will be announced at the virtual awards ceremony in October. The LMGI Awards honor the outstanding and creative visual contributions by location professionals in film, television and commercials from around the globe. The LMGI Awards also recognize outstanding service by film commissions for their support “above and beyond” during the production process.
This year, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 7th Annual LMGI Awards breaks with tradition and will be presented on a digital platform, streaming to a worldwide and more inclusive audience. Recipients of the Lifetime Achievement, Humanitarian and the Eva Monley Awards, which recognize and honor industry members who support the work of location professionals, will be announced in the near future.
Committee co-chairs of this year’s LMGI Awards are Balton and John Rakich. Mike Fantasia is LMGI president.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More