Producers Guild Of America Honors Ava DuVernay
With The 2018 Visionary Award
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 presented by Cadillac 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. The Producers Guild 2018 Visionary Award is sponsored by Delta Air Lines.
Ava DuVernay is being recognized 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 dollars. 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.”
