The Visual Effects Society (VES) has announced that acclaimed director/producer/writer Ava DuVernay will be a keynote speaker at its 9th annual Summit, “Inspiring Change: Building on 20 Years of VES Innovation.” The interactive forum on Saturday, October 28, at Sofitel Hotel Beverly Hills celebrates the Society’s milestone 20th Anniversary and will bring together top creatives, executives, thought leaders and visionaries from diverse disciplines to explore the dynamic evolution of visual imagery and the VFX industry landscape in a TED Talks-like atmosphere.
Nominated for the Academy Award and eight Emmy Awards, winner of the BAFTA for Best Documentary and The Peabody Award, Ava DuVernay’s 13TH is one of the most critically-acclaimed films of 2016. In 2015, DuVernay directed the historical drama Selma, which garnered four Golden Globe nominations and two Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Her current directorial work includes the award-winning dramatic television series Queen Sugar; and the upcoming Disney feature film A Wrinkle in Time.
DuVernay previously wrote, produced and directed the dramatic feature Middle of Nowhere, which earned her the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Best Director Award. In 2010, she wrote, financed, produced and directed her first narrative feature, I Will Follow. The family drama was hailed by critic Roger Ebert as “one of the best films I’ve seen about the loss of a loved one.” DuVernay made her directorial debut with the critically acclaimed 2008 hip hop documentary, This Is The Life, and has directed several network documentaries, including Venus Vs. for ESPN. She has directed significant short form work including August 28: A Day in the Life of a People, commissioned by The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as acclaimed fashion and beauty films for Prada and Apple.
In 2017, DuVernay was named one of Fortune Magazine’s 50 Greatest World Leaders and TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. She also distributes and amplifies the work of people of color and women directors through her film collective ARRAY.
The VES Summit will host a stellar roster of experts and provocateurs. As previously announced, these include:
- Keynote Speaker Syd Mead, acclaimed visual futurist and conceptual artist
- President of IMAX Home Entertainment Jason Brenek on Evolution in Entertainment: VR, Cinema and Beyond
- CEO of SSP Blue Hemanshu Nigam on When Hackers Attack: How Can Hollywood Fight Back?
- Head of Adobe Research Gavin Miller on Will the Future Look More Like Harry Potter or Star Trek?
- Sr. research engineer at Autodesk Evan Atherton on The Age of Imagination
- Founder/CEO of the Emblematic Group Nonny de la Peña on Creating for Virtual, Augmented & Mixed Realities.
Additional speakers and roundtable moderators will be announced soon.
Top Olympic sponsor Panasonic is ending its contract with the IOC
TOKYO (AP)--Olympic sponsor Panasonic is terminating its contract with the IOC at the end of the year, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Panasonic is one of 15 companies that are so-called TOP sponsors for the International Olympic Committee. It's not known the value of the Panasonic sponsorship, but sponsors contribute more than $2 billion in a four-year cycle to the IOC. In a statement, Panasonic said it became an IOC sponsor in 1987 and expanded to the Paralympics in 2014. It did not make clear why it was changing course and said only that is was related to continual "reviews how sponsorship should evolve." Two other Japanese companies are also among the IOC's 15 leading sponsors. Toyota, which for several months has been reportedly ready to end its contract, was contacted Tuesday by The Associated Press but offered no new information. "Toyota has been supporting the Olympic and Paralympic movements since 2015 and continues to do so," Toyota said in a statement. "No announcement to suggest otherwise has been made by Toyota." Japanese sponsors seem to have turned away from the Olympics, likely related to the one-year delay in holding the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The COVID-19 delay reduced sponsors' visibility with no fans allowed to attend competition venues, ran up the costs, and unearthed myriad corruption scandals around the Games. Tiremaker Bridgestone told AP "nothing has been decided." Toyota had a contact valued at $835 million — reported to be the IOC's largest when it was announced in 2015. It included four Olympics beginning with the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games in South Korea and ran through the just-completed Paris Olympics and Paralympics. Reports in Japan suggest Toyota may keep its Paralympic Olympic sponsorship. The... Read More