By Creative Media Times
The Shape of Water. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Directors Guild of America handed out their top honors last night, giving Guillermo del Toro its top honors for helming leading awards contender “Shape of Water,” further cementing Guillermo del Toro as frontrunner for the Oscars.
Guillermo del Toro wins feature award for the fantasy drama film, winning over over Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), Christopher Nolan (“Dunkirk”) and Jordan Peele (“Get Out”).
“The Shape of Water” also dominated 2018 Oscar nominations, earning 13 nods including best picture, best director and best actress for star Sally Hawkins.
Equal parts fantasy and romance, ‘Water’ continues director del Toro’s fascination with monsters and elements of dark fantasy in a historical setting similarly seen in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), the director’s last major awards contender.
Back to DGA, Reed Morano won the award for Dramatic Series for The Handmaid’s Tale, while Jordan Peele, also an Oscar nominee, won big with the First-Time Feature Award for Get Out.
The DGA Awards is another strong of indicator of overall Oscar voter perception of films in contention: only seven DGA winners failed to win the academy award best director, the most recent being Ben Affleck, who won the DGA award for “Argo” but failed to secure Oscar nomination.
To see the full list of DGA winners, go to dga.org.
