ASC honores Chris Menges
Filmmaker to receive International Achievement Award
The American Society of Cinematographers has selected Chris Menges as the recipient of its International Achievement Award. The kudo will be presented at the 24th Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards at the Century Plaza on Feb. 27.
Menges won Oscars for "The Killing Fields" and "The Mission" and was nominated for "Michael Collins" and "The Reader." The British cinematographer's credits include "Black Beauty," "The Boxer," "Dirty Pretty Things," "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," "Notes on a Scandal," "The Yellow Handkerchief" and "Stop-Loss."
"Chris Menges has dedicated his career to helping to create films that tell the important stories of our times," said ASC president Michael Goi,. "He has a unique talent for creating compelling images that pull audiences into those stories."
Previous British recipients of the ASC International award include Freddie Young, Jack Cardiff, Freddie Francis, Oswald Morris, Billy Williams, Douglas Slocombe, Gilbert Taylor and Walter Lassally.
Menges began his career at the age of 17 in England as an assistant to his neighbor Allan Forbes, an American filmmaker who produced documentaries.
When he was 22, Granada Television sent Menges to South Africa to shoot a clandestine documentary about Nelson Mandela being imprisoned and the banning of the African National Congress. During the next several years, he shot documentaries in Rhodesia, Angola, the Congo, Cyprus, in the jungles of Burma, on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam, in Egypt during the 1967 war and in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Menges earned his first narrative film credit for "Kes" in 1969. He was the second unit cinematographer on "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back."
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