The Directors Guild of Great Britain celebrated its second Directors Guild Awards for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Film and Television with a gala ceremony at the Curzon Mayfair in London on the 20th of March 2005.

The DGGB Awards honoured, amongst others, director Sam Mendes with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in theatre and film and director Simon McBurney with an Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatre.

The evening was compered by Michael Winner. Kevin Spacey and Simon Russell Beale attended the event on behalf of Sam Mendes.

The recipients of the Directors Guild Awards for Outstanding Directorial Achievement are as follows:

DGGB Awards (non-competitive):
Lifetime Achievement Award: Sam Mendes
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatre: Simon McBurney

Competitive Awards:
International Film:
Bill Condon Kinsey

British Film
Shane Meadows& Pawel Pawlikowski My Summer of Love

Foreign Language Film
Walter Salles Motorcycle Diaries

Short Film
Brendan Grant London Fields Are Blue

Commercial
Malcolm Venville Kids (Anti – Smoking)

Radio (body of work)
Jane Morgan

Television Documentary
Adam Curtis The Power of Nightmares- Baby Its Cold Outside

Television Movie / Mini Series
Leo Regan Comfortably Numb

60 Minute Television
John Strickland Bodies Episode 1

30 Minute Television
Jon Jones The Alan Clark Diaries Episode 2


Lifetime Achievement Award – Sam Mendes

“The Guild likes the idea of being bold enough to recognise formidable achievement in a body of work, no matter the age of the individual"

Due to filming Jarhead in Mexico, Sam Mendes is unable to attend the event. An excerpt from his acceptance video message (transcript) reads as follows:

I feel extremely grateful to the Directors Guild – I’m very surprised. I feel very undeserving. There are many more deserving directors, probably a lot of the people sitting in this room! I feel the award is a bank loan, which I’ll take out and pay back by the end of 20 years, and by then I’ll feel more deserving. I don’t feel deserving. I feel extremely lucky to have done all this work at such a young age. I’d like to say thank you to all the people that have helped me. I feel like I’ve stood on pairs of shoulders over the last 20-25 years, of writers, designers, cinematographers, costume designers, make up artists – and in particular, actors. Kevin Spacey and Simon Russell Beale have been part of my favourite projects. Most of all I’d like to say thank you to the directors who have influenced me while I was young in theatre. Peter Brook, Peter Stein, Luke Bondy, Deborah Warner, Nick Hytner. I’d like to say thank you for all the support I received when I first started out in theatre. Terry Hands; Richard Eyre; the associate director at the Donmar, David Levaux; John Crowley; Michael Grandage – who is now of course artistic director at the Donmar, I enjoy the society of other directors, and I think it was Max Stafford Clark who likened being a director to being an alcoholic – you never know other people are going through the same experience until you meet and work with them.

It gives me great pride and joy to say I’m Sam Mendes, and I’m a director.