Filmmaker Jane Campion wins DGA's best film award for 'The Power of the Dog'

Filmmaker from New Zealand Jane Campion made history at the DGA Awards on Saturday night (U.S. Pacific Time) by becoming the second consecutive woman—and third in the 74-year history of the awards—to win the top honour for the best theatrical feature film.

Campion won the award for Netflix’s The Power of the Dog, which gives her even more of an edge in the Oscar race as this year’s film awards season heads into the homestretch. Campion won over Kenneth Branagh for Belfast, Paul Thomas Anderson for Licorice Pizza, Steven Spielberg for West Side Story and Denis Villeneuve for Dune. Another highlight was Spike Lee receiving the lifetime achievement award, which he celebrated with an epic 23-minute speech about his journey to filmmaking. Also, Joseph P. Reidy received the Frank Capra Achievement Award and Gerry Hood was given the Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award.

The Directors Guild of America’s 74th annual DGA Awards returned to an in-person event on Saturday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. Maggie Gyllenhaal won the DGA Award for first-time feature (making it her first-ever DGA nod) for yet another Netflix feature, The Lost Daughter. — IANS

Smriti Mundhra awarded for docu-series

Oscar-nominated Indian-American filmmaker Smriti Mundhra took home the first award for the best children’s programme. It was presented by Pamela Adlon, creator and star of the comedy drama series Better Things to Mundhra for the Shelter episode of HBO Max’s series, Through Our Eyes. It is an inspiring journey into the lives of American families from the perspective of children, as they navigate formidable yet all-too-common challenges along with parents and siblings. The four-part gritty docu-series captures the innocence of childhood and the strength of perseverance in the face of parental incarceration, climate displacement, the wounds of war, and homelessness (the last being the subject of Mundhra’s award-winning episode). To Indian viewers, Mundhra is better-known as the maker of the Netflix series Indian Matchmaking presented by Sima Taparia. Mundhra shared the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival for her first feature documentary film, A Suitable Girl, with her co-director Sarita Khurana. She and co-director Sami Khan got an Oscar nomination in 2020 for her documentary, St Louis Superman, on the activist, battle rapper and former politician Bruce Franks Jr. IANS