With talks for the Directors Guild of America’s next film and TV contract to begin sometime in the next year, Michael Apted has been elected president of the 13,400-member guild for a third two-year term.
Some 129 delegates to the DGA’s biennial convention, held Saturday at the guild’s Sunset Boulevard headquarters, also returned several other top incumbents to their elective posts. Among those were national vp Steven Soderbergh and secretary-treasurer Gil Cates.
“I am honored to have been re-elected for a third term as president of the DGA,” Apted said after winning reelection by acclamation. “The next few years will be critical to our guild and to the industry. It is my goal as president to lead our guild through upcoming negotiations and ensure that the creative and economic rights of directors and their teams are protected for years to come.”
Soderbergh hailed Apted for his “passion, diligence and integrity.”
Apted was first elected DGA president in June 2003, succeeding Martha Coolidge.
A film director with credits including “The World Is Not Enough,” “Gorillas in the Mist,” Coalminer’s Daugher” and “Nell,” he currently is in pre-production on “”The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” A British native, Apted is also closely identified with a television documentary series launched with the landmark “7 Up” and followed by installments about 14 English kids at various ages, through 2005’s “49 Up.”
