Israeli Alma Har’el wins Director’s Guild award

Sam Mendes won the top prize for direction of a feature film, for his World War I epic, 1917.

By HANNAH BROWN
Alma Har'el, director of “Honey Boy” poses at the 72nd Annual Directors Guild Awards in Los Angeles (photo credit: MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS)
Alma Har'el, director of “Honey Boy” poses at the 72nd Annual Directors Guild Awards in Los Angeles
(photo credit: MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS)
Director Alma Har’el became the first Israeli and the first woman to win the Director’s Guild of America Award for Outstanding Direction – First-Time Feature Film for her work helming Honey Boy, when the awards were given out at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday night.
The DGA began giving out this award in 2015.
Har’el used her win for the critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama written by and starring Shia LaBeouf to make a passionate plea for women directors who lost their health insurance when they had children and took time off from work. As she won her DGA for Best First Feature, she thanked director Jessica Dimmock for speaking out about women directors trying to juggle children and a career.
Dimmock took time off from her work to care for her newborn baby in 2017 and found that she had not earned enough money to meet the minimum yearly required income to keep her DGA health insurance. Dimmock wrote an open letter to DGA management asking that this system be changed in order to allow new parents to take time off, and she got more than 50 prominent women in Hollywood to co-sign the letter, including Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler, Ava DuVernay and Greta Gerwig.
Har’el was also outspoken in her criticism of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences earlier this month for not nominating any women in the Best Director Oscar category this year, and suggested introducing a category for female directors.
Sam Mendes won the top prize for direction of a feature film, for his World War I epic, 1917. This is a significant victory because the DGA award is widely seen to be predictive of the Oscar both for Best Director and Best Picture. Mendes already won a Best Director Golden Globe, and the film won the Golden Globe for Best Picture in the drama category.