Like a number of awards season contenders Focus Features’ “Loving” could use a bit of a boost in what is turning into a tough battle for a Best Picture nomination. It got it today with a well-deserved honor from the Producers Guild of America. The organization announced the period drama as the recipient of the 2017 Stanley Kramer Award which will be handed at the PGA Awards ceremony on Saturday, Jan. 28.
The “Loving” honorees are PGA members Ged Doherty & Colin Firth; Sarah Green, Nancy Buirski and Marc Turtletaub & Peter Saraf. Directed by Jeff Nichols, “Loving” chronicles the battle Mildred and Richard Loving (Ruth Negga, Joel Edgerton) faced to live in the state of their choosing as an interracial couple in the 1960’s.
The PGA established the Stanley Kramer Award in 2002 to honor a production, producer or other individuals whose achievement or contribution illuminates and raises public awareness of important social issues. Previous winners include “Milk,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “The Normal Heart,” “In America,” “Hotel Rwanda” and “Fruitvale Station.”
In a statement, Producers Guild Awards Chairs Donald De Line and Amy Pascal remarked, “It has never been more important than right now to recognize our shared humanity and the quietly unshakable bond between Richard and Mildred Loving, who—just like Stanley Kramer’s classic characters—stood as the ultimate rebuke to a culture intent on dividing us. ‘Loving’ is a film that’s unthinkable without the path that Stanley Kramer blazed, and one the great filmmaker would be proud to recognize as part of his legacy.”
The 2017 PGA Awards nominees will be announced on Jan. 5.