Latin America Represented in the 68th DGA Awards Nominations
18 January, 2016Back in February 2015, during the Directors Guild of America’s (DGA) award ceremony, director Steven Spielberg made a surprise announcement of a new category to be introduced in the following year’s awards: First-Time Feature Film Director. The DGA’s National Board approved the category back in October 2015, and on January 12th 2016, announced its first nominees.
Amongst the 5 contenders, Brazilian Fernando Coimbra makes his mark because of his film A Wolf at the Door (O Lobo Atrás Da Porta), which had its cinema release in Brazil in June 2014. The film received great reviews from Brazilian and foreign critics, and won the award for Best Film at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival in 2013; even so, Coimbra found himself shocked upon the announcement of his nomination.
Coimbra told Braulio Lorentz, writing for G1 in Brazil that receiving a phone call from the DGA’s president informing him of his nomination, while editing his newest film Sand Castle – a British production starring Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) and Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Days of Future Past) – was such a surprise he almost fell off his chair.
The director doesn’t seem to be giving himself enough credit; Coimbra not only directed, but wrote A Wolf at the Door, and out of 35 nominations at film festivals across the world the film has so far taken home 24 wins (including Best Director at Cinema Brazil, SESC Film Festival, Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival, Lleida Latin-American Film Festival and Miami Film Festival, as well as the Horizon’s Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival).
Coimbra also contributed to Netflix original series Narcos in which fellow Brazilian Wagner Moura stars as Medellín’s most feared drug cartel boss, Pablo Escobar. During his G1 interview, Coimbra states he finds his chance of winning the 68th Annual DGA awards very slim due to the presence of Alex Garland (Ex Machina) and László Nemes (Son of Saul), who is the favourite to win the Oscar for Son of Saul, in the Foreign Film category this year.
It is also to no surprise that Alejando G. Iñárritu has been nominated in the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film category for The Revenant. The chances of Iñárritu winning the DGA after winning the Golden Globe for Best Director and Best Film (The Revenant) are high; in case this happens, his chances of getting his hands on an Oscar second year in a row will also be high, knowing that since 1996, only one director has won an Oscar for Best Director without winning the DGA awards in the same year.
Argentine director Juan Cabral is also nominated in this year’s DGA awards for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials for adverts created for Ikea and Lurpak brands. His name may be strange to you, but his most famous advert is familiar to the British public: the gorilla playing drums for Cadbury’s, and one that’s always worth sharing:
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