Spike Lee to receive DGA lifetime achievement award

Spike Lee will receive the Directors Guild Of America’s (DGA) lifetime achievement award, joining a roster of previous winners that includes Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Akira Kurosawa.

Lee will collect the Guild’s highest honour at the 74th Annual DGA Awards on March 12. The Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Achievement in Motion Picture Direction has only been bestowed 35 times in the history of the DGA – and so far never to a woman. The Guild presented the filmmaker with a DGA Honor in 2002 for his “distinguished contributions to our nation’s culture in support of filmmaking”.

The Guild’s president Lesli Linka Glatter hailed Lee as an “Icon. Trailblazer. Visionary.” She continued, “Spike Lee has changed the face of cinema, and there is no single word that encapsulates his significance to the craft of directing… His bold and passionate storytelling over the past three decades has masterfully entertained, as it held a stark mirror to our society and culture. And while he is no stranger to huge commercial success, he is also the beating heart of independent film.”

Lee broke out with Do The Right Thing in 1989, for which he earned a best screenplay Oscar nomination, and his career credits include She’s Gotta Have It, School Daze, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Summer Of Sam, B, 25th Hour, Old Boy, and Chi-Raq. He earned a DGA nomination for 2018’s BlacKkKlansman and shared the adapted screenplay Oscar with Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott.

The DGA will announce its documentary nominees on January 26 followed a day later by feature nominees.

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