The Directors Guild of Canada has announced its Special Awards honourees for the 22nd Annual DGC Awards Gala: Denys Arcand for the DGC Lifetime Achievement Award, Marie Clements for the DGC Impact Award for Inclusion & Leadership and Patricia Gallivan to be named Honourary Life Member.

This year’s DGC Awards Gala will be held at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto on Saturday, October 21st. The show will open with a performance from comedian and actor Ali Hassan—seen most recently on Run The Burbs (CBC TV) and Sort Of (CBC Gem, MAX), and heard weekly as the host of Laugh Out Loud on CBC Radio.

Denys Arcand is a groundbreaking filmmaker and one of the working legends of Canadian cinema. Denys’s film The Decline of the American Empire (1986) garnered Canada’s first Academy Award nomination for Best International Feature Film (Best Foreign Language Film), marking the first time the work of a Canadian director had been nominated on a Canadian production, outside of documentary or shorts. Denys’s work has changed the nature of what’s possible in Canadian film and brought recognition the world over from his Oscar-winning film The Barbarian Invasions (2003) to his Oscar-nominated films Jesus of Montreal (1989) and The Decline of the American Empire (1986) to the captivating work he continues to offer us including The Fall of the American Empire (2018) and Testament (2023) released just this year.

“I am beyond honoured to announce Denys Arcand as recipient of the DGC’s Lifetime Achievement Award,” said DGC President Warren P. Sonoda. “Denys and Denys’s work have helped shaped the career of so many Canadian filmmakers of his generation and beyond, his art and artistry opening doors to the world and his voice redefining what’s possible in popular cinema.”

Marie Clements is a renowned playwright, screenwriter, director and producer. She wrote, directed and produced her first feature in 2019, and her films have since garnered 29 Awards and numerous nominations including a DGC Awards nomination for Red Snow and four CSA nominations for Bones of Crows. Marie’s storytelling not only provides an unflinching eye into Indigenous life, past and present but her productions have shown an unsurpassed commitment to inclusion and representation in front and behind the camera. Her latest production Bones of Crows (2022) featured more than sixty Indigenous performers and included over fifty Indigenous/BIPOC crew members offering many their first opportunity in senior roles.

“Real representation in our industry can only happen when inclusion becomes an active mission, up and down the line, in front of the camera and behind, and that will only happen with inspirational leaders at the helm like Marie Clements.” Sonoda added: “Marie embodies the ethos of making diversity of voice an everyday part of our work. She's made an indelible impact with the work she's done and the young filmmakers and craftspeople she's mentored and elevated."

Patricia Gallivan, K.C., has been part of the DGC extended family for over 30 years, representing DGC BC through nine rounds of collective bargaining—since even before the Guild had its first term contracts with producers’ associations. Her work is entrenched in the very fabric of British Columbia’s film & television industry from foundational jurisdiction issues to labour board hearings on Section 41 which established the framework for collective bargaining in the province to helping carve out the terms of industry relationships between labour organizations themselves. Pat is recognized as a leading labour and employment lawyer in Chambers Global, Chambers Canada, Best Lawyers in Canada, Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, Who’s Who Legal Global and National and Business in Vancouver BC 500. She is a fellow in the US College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and former President of the Canadian Association of Counsel to Employers (CACE).

“From the foundations of the film & television industry in British Columbia to the ‘DGC Strong’ campaign and labour negotiations in BC last year, Pat’s service to the Guild has always gone above and beyond,” concluded Sonoda. “No one could be more deserving of calling themselves an honourary member of the Guild than Pat.”