Etheria Film Night is excited to announce our 2019 Inspiration award recipient: prolific, award-winning producer Gale Anne Hurd! After graduating from Stanford University with degrees in Economics and Communications, Gale Anne Hurd worked in various capacities for legendary producer Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. In 1984 she produced and co-wrote her first feature film, the genre classic The Terminator. Next she produced the legendary Academy Award-winning Aliens, followed by the Academy Award®-winning films The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Ghost and the Darkness, and Armageddon. In television, she is an Executive Producer of AMC’s The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, the Amazon streaming series Lore, and serves as a Consulting Producer on Talking Dead. In 2012, Hurd received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She will be present on June 29, 2019 at the 6th annual Etheria Film Night showcase to receive the award in person and will act as a finalist judge of the 2019 Etheria Selections.
Hurd has also produced three PBS documentaries, including True Whispers: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers and Choctaw Code Talkers. Her latest Native American documentary, MANKILLER, the story of Wilma Mankiller, the first woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation has screened in over 30 film festivals around the world, and won ‘Best of Fest’ at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, ‘Best Editing’ at the United Nations Association Film Festival, the ‘Spirit’ Award at the Bozeman International Festival (out of 300 documentary and feature submissions), and ‘Best Documentary Feature’ at the Maoriland, Rome International and Tulsa American Film Festivals. MANKILLER aired nationally on PBS in March 2018.
In addition to widely-known Hollywood blockbusters, like Armageddon and Ang Lee’s The Hulk, Hurd also produces dramatic films, such as The Waterdance, which won the Sundance Audience Award and Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, as well as Safe Passage, starring Susan Sarandon and Sam Shepard, which was honored with the Beatrice Wood Film Award for Artistry in Film. In addition, she produced the Watergate satire, Dick, which starred Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams.
Previously, Hurd was elected by the Producers Branch to serve on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and her additional Board positions include the American Film Institute, Women In Film, the Caucus of Producers, Writers and Directors, and she served as an Officer and Board Member for the Producers Guild of America for over twenty years. An active environmentalist, Hurd has served on the national Boards of The Ocean Conservancy, the International Seakeepers Society, the Waterkeeper Alliance, Reef Check, and the Coral Reef Research Foundation.
In 2015, Hurd was awarded the prestigious David O. Selznick Award for Achievement in Motion Pictures by the Producers Guild of America, joining such past honorees as Clint Eastwood, Kathleen Kennedy, and Steven Spielberg. She is also the recipient of the 2015 Jaeger-LeCoultre ‘Glory to the Filmmaker’ Award from the Los Angeles Festival. In 2013, she accepted the Cartier Award at the Deauville American Film Festival and was the recipient of the DiGamma Kappa Award for Distinguished Service in Broadcasting from Grady College at the University of Georgia, home of the Peabody Awards. The Green Cross honored Hurd with their ‘Entertainment Industry Environmental Leadership’ Award.