Multi-hyphenate George Clooney will receive the Cinema Audio Society Filmmaker Award at the 57th Annual CAS Awards on April 17, in a virtual awards celebration.
“The CAS could not be more excited to honor Mr. George Clooney with our Filmmaker Award,” said Karol Urban, CAS president. “George embodies a strength of character that not only shows in the integrity and preeminence of his works but in the way he regards and is regarded by his creative teams and collaborators. In such a time of uncertainty, his hardworking, innovative, and generous demeanor and body of exceptional films and television projects makes him an especially exemplary filmmaker for 2020.”
Clooney is recognized as much for his global humanitarian efforts as he is for his accomplishments in the entertainment industry.
Clooney’s achievements as a performer and a filmmaker have earned him, in part, two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes including the Cecil B. DeMille Award, four SAG Awards, one BAFTA award, an Emmy, and an American Film Institute Life Achievement Award. When Clooney received his eighth Academy Award nomination, he earned a special spot in the Oscar record books. He has now been nominated in more categories than anyone else in Oscar history.
Through his production company Smokehouse Pictures, Clooney’s current project is The Midnight Sky for Netflix which was released at the end of 2020. Clooney not only directed the film but starred in it as well. Next up, Clooney will direct and produce The Tender Bar based on the J.R Moehringer’s memoir of the same name alongside his Smokehouse partner Grant Heslov for Amazon Studios
Among the films he has produced, directed and/or starred in are Suburbicon, Money Monster, Our Brand is Crisis, and The Monuments Men. In 2016 he also starred in Hail, Caesar!, Gravity, and Tomorrowland. Other Smokehouse films include the Academy Award-winning drama Argo, August: Osage County and The Ides of March.
Clooney and Heslov first worked together at Section Eight, a company in which Clooney was partnered with Steven Soderbergh. Section Eight productions included Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 12, Ocean’s 13, Michael Clayton, The Good German, Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Jacket, Full Frontal and Welcome to Collinwood.
Before his film career, Clooney starred in several television series, becoming best known to TV audiences for his five years on the hit NBC drama ER.
Clooney is a strong First Amendment advocate with a deep commitment to humanitarian causes. In 2006, Clooney and his father, Nick, went to drought-stricken Darfur, Africa, to film the documentary Journey to Darfur. Clooney’s work on behalf of Darfur relief led to his addressing the United Nations Security Council.
Among the many honors received as a result of his humanitarian efforts in Darfur was the 2007 Peace Summit Award, given at the eighth World Summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. In 2008, Clooney was designated a U.N. Messenger of Peace, one of eight individuals chosen to advocate on behalf of the U.N. and its peacekeeping efforts.
The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Clooney with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 2010 Primetime Emmys. Later that year, Clooney received the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award for his dedication to humanitarian efforts in Sudan and Haiti.
Clooney will be the 16th CAS Filmmaker honoree. Past honorees have included: James Mangold, Steven Spielberg, Joe Wright, Jon Favreau, Jay Roach, Richard Linklater, Edward Zwick, Jonathan Demme, Rob Marshall, Taylor Hackford, Henry Selick, Paul Mazursky, Bill Condon, Gil Cates and Quentin Tarantino.
Also, being honored that evening with the CAS Career Achievement Award will be previously announced honoree, production sound mixer William B. Kaplan CAS. The CAS Awards will honor Outstanding Achievements in Sound Mixing in seven categories for film and television, as well as present the CAS Student Recognition Award and Outstanding Product Awards.
