The Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE, Local 800) announced today that Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and his long-time producing partner and collaborator, Academy Award-winning production and costume designer Catherine Martin, known for their visually stunning movies, including the recent highly acclaimed Elvis, will receive the esteemed 2023 Cinematic Imagery Award. The Luhrmann/Martin 30-year collaboration has produced decades of successful and innovative entertainment for film, television, and the stage. They will accept the honor at the 27th Annual ADG Awards on Saturday, February 18, 2023, at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. The announcement was made today by ADG President Nelson Coates, ADG, and Awards Producers Michael Allen Glover, ADG and Megan Elizabeth Bell, ADG.
“We are incredibly thrilled to honor Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin with the 2023 ADG Cinematic Imagery Award. Since their first collaboration, the extraordinarily creative and impactful pairing of these groundbreaking filmmakers has continued to dazzle audiences, stretch the imagination, and push the cinematic boundaries while also remaining excitingly contemporary,” said Coates.
The ADG’s Cinematic Imagery Award is given to those whose body of work in the film and television industry has richly enhanced the visual aspects of the viewer’s experience. Previous recipients include Jane Campion, Ryan Murphy, Chuck Lorre, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, John Lasseter, George Lucas and Clint Eastwood.
Oscar-nominated Baz Luhrmann is a master storyteller and pioneer of contemporary visual culture, writing, directing, and producing across film, opera, theatre, events and music. His signature blend of drama, romance, decadence and wit fuses high and low culture, a unique sonic and cinematic language and trademark theatrical aesthetic that continuously captivates audiences and ignites imaginations around the world. Nominated for three Golden Globes and seven Critics Choice Awards and one of AFI’s Top 10 Films of 2022, Elvis has become the filmmaker’s highest grossing film in the U.S. and in 22 international territories, including the UK, Mexico, Holland, Brazil and New Zealand. Elvis is also 2022’s highest-grossing non-franchise/IP film.
Luhrmann burst onto the scene with the first of the Red Curtain Trilogy, Strictly Ballroom, followed by the ambitious modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet and Academy Award-winning Moulin Rouge!, which cemented Luhrmann’s following amongst audiences and industry alike. In addition, Moulin Rouge! The Musical won 10 Tony Awards (the most of the 2020-2019 season), adding to the two Tony Awards garnered by Luhrmann’s production of Puccini’s opera La Bohème on Broadway in 2003.
The filmmaker’s sweeping historical epic Australia was followed by his adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which won two Academy Awards. A collaboration with Netflix later produced The Get Down (2016), a critically successful series based on the birth of hip-hop in 1970s South Bronx.
In 1992, producer and Oscar-winning production designer and costume designer Catherine Martin began designing for film and partnered with Luhrmann on his hugely successful film debut Strictly Ballroom, and on William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction. She garnered two Academy Awards for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design for her work on The Great Gatsby. Martin’s acclaimed design work on Moulin Rouge! won her two Academy Awards, for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction, among other accolades.
Martin has also designed almost all of Luhrmann’s stage productions, including Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a version of Puccini’s opera La Bohème on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for Production Design. Martin worked as both costume designer and production designer on Luhrmann’s stage production of Strictly Ballroom the Musical.
Martin co-produced Luhrmann’s epic Australia and was also the film’s production designer and costume designer. The film earned Martin an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design.
The ADG Awards honor excellence in Production Design in theatrical motion pictures, television, commercials, music videos and animated feature films. Producers of this year’s ADG Awards is Art Director Michael Allen Glover, ADG (Station Eleven, The Alienist, Solos). Joining the team as co-producer is Production Designer Megan Elizabeth Bell, ADG (Out of the Blue, Breakwater, American Murderer).
The ADG awards are proud to be sponsored by Presenting Level: Sweetwater/NEP Live Events; Premier Level: Astek Wallcovering, Cush Light, Dazian; Platinum Level: Goodnight Productions, Innovative Artists, Interior Design Solutions/ Belbien, Pixar, Universal Studios Operations Group, WPA Worldwide Production Agency; Gold Level: WME, Media Sponsors: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, Below the Line, SHOOTonline.