The Sundance Institute has announced that director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station) will be honored with the Vanguard Award, presented by Tiffany & Co.
Kerry Washington will present the award to Coogler at the third annual ‘Celebrate Sundance Institute’ benefit on June 5, 2013 in Los Angeles.
The benefit will also honor the life and work of cRoger Ebert with the Vanguard Leadership Award in Memoriam, in recognition of his advocacy of independent cinema. That award will be presented by Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford and accepted by Ebert’s wife, Chaz Ebert.
Coogler’s much-lauded first feature film, Fruitvale Station, was selected for Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program Screenwriters Lab and Artist Granting Fund and went on to win both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in January this year.
Fruitvale Station will screen in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes next week, and will be released by The Weinstein Company in July 2013.
The Vanguard Award, presented by Tiffany & Co., comes with a cash grant and mentorship from industry professionals and Feature Film Program staff. Coogler will be the second recipient of the Vanguard Award. The first was presented last year to Benh Zeitlin, director of Beasts of the Southern Wild, whose film went on to receive similar worldwide acclaim.
The Vanguard Awards were founded in 2011 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program and its founding director, Michelle Satter.
