The Directors Guild of America announced nominees for its annual awards, to be held on February 2. Five directors (five men and zero women) are nominated for their feature films – Bradley Cooper (A Star is Born), Alfonso Cuaron (Roma), Peter Farrelly (Green Book), Spike Lee (BlackKklansman) and Adam McKay (Vice).
Zero women are nominated in the First-Time Feature Film category: Bo Burnham (Eighth Grade), Bradley Cooper (A Star is Born), Carlos Lopez Estrada (Blindspotting), Matthew Heineman (A Private War) and Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You).
Zero women are nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Limited Series: Cary Joji Fukunaga (Maniac), David Leveau (Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert), Barry Levinson (Paterno), Ben Stiller (Escape at Dannemora), Jean-Marc Vallee (Sharp Objects).
Zero women are nominated for Variety/Talk/News/Sports (Regularly Scheduled Programming). One woman is nominated for Variety/Talk/News/Sports (Specials): Beth McCarthy‑Miller (Bill Maher: Live From Oklahoma).
The DGA has only nominated four women for feature filmmaking in the last 30 years: Barbra Streisand (1991), Sofia Coppola (2003), Kathryn Bigelow (2009 and 2012) and Greta Gerwig (2018).
The documentary director category is a slight improvement, with a long history of nominating and awarding female documentarians. This year, Betsy West and Julie Cohen both nominated for RBG and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (with co-director Jimmy Chan) are nominated for Free Solo.
Despite obvious gender discrepancy among DGA film nominees, three women are nominated for directing for television. Two of the five nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series, including Homeland director Lesli Linka Glatter (who shepherds the NBC Female Forward Initiative) as well as The Handmaid’s Tale director Daina Reid. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino is the sole female nominee for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Comedy Series.
© Brigid K. Presecky (1/818) FF2 Media
