LOS ANGELES, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron won the top film award for the monochromatic drama film "Roma" at the 71st Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards held at the Hollywood and Highland Center here on Saturday night.
Cuaron picked up the Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film, beating out fierce rivals, including Bradley Cooper for "A Star Is Born," Spike Lee for "BlacKkKlansman," Adam McKay for "Vice," and Peter Farrelly for "Green Book."
Written and directed by Cuaron, the critically acclaimed autobiographical drama "Roma" follows the life of a live-in housekeeper to an upper middle-class family. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last year and took home two wins last month at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, including best foreign language film and best director. It also won four awards, including best director, at the 24th Critics' Choice Awards last month.
Cuaron is widely considered one of the front-runners in the best director category in this year's Academy Awards race. "Roma" led the race for the 91th Academy Awards, or the Oscars, with 10 nominations. Cuaron had won the DGA award and the Oscar for the science fiction thriller film "Gravity" in 2013.
The DGA Awards has matched the Oscar in the best director category all but seven years since 1949. Last year, the DGA Feature Film winner Guillermo del Toro also became the winner of the Oscar for Best Director for "The Shape of Water."
The winner of the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director is Bo Burnham for the comedy-drama film "Eighth Grade." This was Burnham's first DGA Award. The coming-of-age comedy is Burnham's debut feature film.
Tim Wardle won the documentary award for "Three Identical Strangers." This is also the first ever DGA Award for Wardle.
The DGA Awards are issued annually by the Directors Guild of America to honor outstanding directorial achievements in feature films, documentaries, television and commercials. The Directors Guild of America represents the interests of more than 17,500 film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry and abroad.
