Australian Directors’ Guild to honour Samantha Lang

Acclaimed director and former ADG President, Samantha Lang, will be honoured with the Cecil Holmes Award at the Australian Directors’ Guild awards on December 8.

The Cecil Holmes Award is the Australian Directors Guild’s highest honour, recognising exceptional individuals who have advocated for Australian directors’ advanced craft and careers.

Lang’s credits include The Monkey’s Mask, The Well, Packed to the Rafters, All Saints, My Place, Twisted Tales.

ADG President Rowan Woods said: “The length and breadth of Sam Lang’s achievements are monumental and unique. Her outstanding and internationally recognised feature films, her exceptional leadership as a two-term ADG President and her significant and transformational work, championing diversity and inclusion make Sam Lang the ADG Board’s unanimous pick for this year’s award. Sam’s creativity and humanity inspire all Australian directors and there is no worthier recipient than Sam for this year’s Cecil Holmes Award. I look forward to publicly acknowledging Sam for her contributions in front her directing peers and the broader industry at the ADG Awards ceremony on December 8.”

Samantha Lang is a filmmaker and visual artist who has worked in Australia, France and the US. Her feature films The Well, The Monkey’s Mask and L’Idole screened at major international festivals such as Sundance, Toronto, Locarno, and have received international recognition at the highest level, The Well competing at the Cannes Film Festival for the Palme D’Or. In 2019 – her feature documentary It All Started with a Stale Sandwich screened at the Sydney Film Festival. Most recently she has made two VR films Prehistoric VR and Anthropocene VR in collaboration with Erth Visual and Physical and supported by Create NSW and Screen NSW.

The Cecil Holmes Award, established in 1995, is named in honour of Cecil Holmes, whose work was largely unheralded, and who was later instrumental in mentoring a number of directors during the 70s film renaissance. The Award is now generally given in alternate years or with the identification of a deserving recipient.

The ADG has also confirmed the hosts and a number of presenters at this year’s ADG Awards – to be held on December 8 at the Actors Centre, Leichhardt, Sydney. Hosts are comedians and satirists, Jenna Owen and Vic Zerbst, who perform together as Freudian Nip.

Presenters at this year’s Awards include the directors Leah Purcell, Fadia Abboud, Christiaan Van Vuuren, Adele Vuko and Pearl Tan, with more to be confirmed over the coming days.