The Advanced Imaging Society Partners with EARTHDAY.ORG to Present Adam McKay with Inaugural Voices For The Earth Award at the 12th Annual Lumiere Awards 

(Los Angeles, January 20, 2022) The Advanced Imaging Society and EARTHDAY.ORG announced today that Academy Award-winning writer, director, producer Adam McKay will be presented with the first ever Voices For The Earth Award at the 2022 AIS’ Lumiere Awards. The Society will honor McKay at the 12th annual awards ceremony, which will now take place as a luncheon on Friday, March 4, 2022 at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Health protocols will be observed.

“Considering the incredible obstacles our creative community has worked through to create their brilliant stories in the last year, we knew we needed to find a way to present these awards but to do so in a very safe way,” said Jim Chabin, President of AIS.  “We remain flexible and are confident and committed to creatively getting that done on March 4th.”

McKay’s recent Netflix hit Don’t Look Up tells the story of two low-level astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence & Leonardo DiCaprio) who must go on a giant media tour to warn of an approaching comet that will destroy Earth. Don’t Look Uprecently became the streamer’s second most successful movie of all time. 

The Voices For The Earth Award celebrates innovation and inspiration in environmental storytelling and acknowledges creatives who have found a unique approach to strengthen the audience’s appreciation for nature and illustrate the importance of taking care of our shared planet. 

Presenting the award to McKay will be Kathleen Rogers, President of EARTHDAY.ORG.  Rogers says, “EARTHDAY.ORG is in the movement building business. We now recognize that solid science, indisputable facts, and dire warnings are not changing minds as fast as the relentless march of climate change requires. While our earnestness, our knowledge, and our commitment fits the threat, we need to broaden our approach. One approach is humor — an approach that Don’t Look Up hilariously utilizes. We know that humor has a way of breaking down barriers and that educating with humor increases memory and retention of facts. And as Andrew Carnegie said, ‘There is little success where there is little laughter.’ Don’t Look Up comes at precisely the right time, charting an urgently needed alternative pathway along the road to building consensus and action. And it is very funny every step of the way.”

“Adam McKay and his superb cast and creative technology teams have dazzled a global audience of millions while starting a conversation around the critical issue of saving our planet,” said Chabin. “We are thrilled to see our community’s creative genius used for such vital purpose.”

McKay says: “Since reading the 2018 IPCC Report and then Dave Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth, I had been searching for the right story to tackle the climate crisis. Given how audiences around the globe have shown they have an appetite for these stories, I hope we will see many more that can continue to raise awareness and mobilize people the world over. I’m very grateful for this award from AIS, presented by Kathleen Rogers at EARTHDAY.ORG. It’s great to see their support of filmmakers telling environmental stories.”

McKay will be joined by previously announced Harold Lloyd Award recipient, director Denis Villeneuve, who is being honored for his film Dune. 

The Lumiere Awards have been presented over the last decade to the industry’s most respected creative and technical leaders. In addition to awards for motion pictures, episodic and new media content, the society will bestow awards for best musical motion picture, best musical scene or performance, and best immersive audio.  

ABOUT ADAM MCKAY
Academy Award winning writer/director/producer Adam McKay’s most recent feature is the Netflix comedy Don’t Look Up, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio. Don’t Look Up tells the story of two low-level astronomers who must go on a giant media tour to warn of an approaching comet that will destroy Earth. McKay’s 2018 feature, Vice, received eight Academy Award nominations, six Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, and a DGA nomination for McKay. In 2015, McKay and Charles Randolph adapted Michael Lewis’s New York Times best-selling book, The Big Short. McKay earned Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Director, and he and Randolph won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards, BAFTA, WGA and USC Scripter Awards. Other recent film work includes his role as an executive producer on Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut Booksmart, Netflix’s Dead to Me and writer/director Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers.

For television, McKay serves as an executive producer on the critically acclaimed HBO show Succession. McKay directed the pilot for which he won the 2018 DGA Award for Drama Series. The show won the 2019 BAFTA for Best International Series and the 2020 EMMY and Golden Globe for Best Drama Series. Upcoming television projects include the previously announced HBO drama series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty and HBO late night series Game Theory with Bomani Jones, as well as a limited series based on Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown’s book about Jeffrey Epstein. In addition, McKay and Bong Joon Ho are developing an HBO limited series inspired by Bong Joon Ho’s Academy Award Best Picture Parasite. 

McKay’s production company, Hyperobject Industries, has a wide-ranging focus from comedies, dramas, horror, documentaries, and documentary-series, as well as politically charged and challenging subjects with which McKay has become synonymous. McKay made his name in the comedy world when he served as head writer at SNL and later writing and directing numerous iconic comedies such as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers. 

ABOUT THE ADVANCED IMAGING SOCIETY
The Advanced Imaging Society was formed more than a decade ago by senior Hollywood executives to identify game-changing filmmaking technologies and foster their deployment to accelerate the success of next-generation consumer experiences. Founders included Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Sony, Paramount, IMAX, Warner Bros. DreamWorks, Dolby, Technicolor and Deluxe. The organization is charged with annually honoring creative and technical professionals for groundbreaking filmmaking and entertainment technology. Through the years, AIS honorees have included James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Ang Lee, Jennifer Lee, James Mangold, Jon Favreau, Christopher McQuarrie, Victoria Alonso and others. The organization now includes Silicon Valley and tech leaders including Google, NVIDIA, HP, Dell, Epic Games and others. 

In addition to its annual awards, the Society produces The Insiders Show Podcast, The Remote Control video series and has active chapters in China, India and Japan. 

ABOUT EARTHDAY.ORG
EARTHDAY.ORG’s mission is to diversify, educate, and activate the environmental movement worldwide. Growing out of the first Earth Day (1970), EARTHDAY.ORG is the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 150,000 partners in nearly 192 countries to build environmental democracy. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day actions each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world. Learn more at earthday.org.

Contacts:        
Brett Thornton Harrison, [email protected]

Press Contacts:
Carol Marshall, [email protected]
Rachel Kogan, [email protected]

EARTHDAY.ORG Press Contacts:
Olivia Altman, [email protected]
Mike DeCarlo, [email protected]
Dan Palumbo, [email protected]