Artists Honored at AFI AWARDS 05

America's finest film and television artists were among the guests honored today by the American Film Institute (AFI) at its annual AFI AWARDS 2015 luncheon. With no winners or losers, AFI AWARDS celebrates the creative ensembles behind the year's most outstanding storytelling in film and television.

In addition to the 20 honorees of 2015, AFI recognized MAD MEN with an AFI Special Award, acknowledging its landmark contributions to America's cultural legacy across nine years. In the history of AFI AWARDS, no other television series has earned as many honors.

AFI also revealed its official rationales (below) for all honorees, providing the cultural and artistic context to mark these outstanding creative endeavors as the year's notable milestones. Additionally, attending artists contributed to the Institute's ongoing almanac of excellence by recording video comments about the state of the film and television art forms. A video compilation of these interviews will be published on AFI.com on Thursday, January 14, 2016.

Closing the luncheon, legendary American director/producer/writer - and 2014 AFI Honorary Degree recipient - Robert Towne (CHINATOWN, MAD MEN) delivered the annual benediction in tribute to the honorees and their remarkable achievements in film and television.

Representing their creative teams, including all 10 directors of this year's AFI AWARDS official film selections, were guests such as: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Adam McKay and Marisa Tomei (THE BIG SHORT); Steven Spielberg (BRIDGE OF SPIES); Cate Blanchett, Todd Haynes, Rooney Mara and Harvey Weinstein (CAROL); Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera (INSIDE OUT); George Miller (MAD MAX: FURY ROAD); Drew Goddard and Ridley Scott (THE MARTIAN); Lenny Abrahamson, Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay (ROOM); Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer (SPOTLIGHT); J.J. Abrams, Bob Iger and Lawrence Kasdan (STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS); F. Gary Gray, O'Shea Jackson, Jr. and Jason Mitchell (STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON); Joel Fields (THE AMERICANS); Jonathan Banks and Vince Gilligan (BETTER CALL SAUL); Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross (BLACK-ISH); llene Chaiken and Brian Grazer (EMPIRE); Kirsten Dunst (FARGO); David Benioff and D. B. Weiss (GAME OF THRONES); Claire Danes and David Nevins (HOMELAND); Jon Hamm, January Jones, Kiernan Shipka and Matthew Weiner (MAD MEN); Aziz Ansari (MASTER OF NONE); Portia Doubleday, Rami Malek and Christian Slater (MR. ROBOT); and Constance Zimmer (UNREAL).

AFI AWARDS 2015 boasted a strong AFI Conservatory alumni presence, with 39 alumni among the storytellers behind the year's most outstanding movies and TV series. Conservatory alumni in significant positions of achievement who received AFI AWARDS included BRIDGE OF SPIES cinematographer Janusz Kami ski ; CAROL editor Affonso Gon alves ; HOMELAND executive producer/director Lesli Linka Glatter (AFI Conservatory Directing Workshop for Women, Class of 1982) and executive producer/writer Gideon Raff ; MAD MEN director Jennifer Getzinger ; MR. ROBOT creator Sam Esmail and executive producer Steve Golin ; Golin was also honored for SPOTLIGHT, featuring Mark Ruffalo as The Boston Globe reporter Michael Rezendes ; STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON cinematographer Matthew Libatique ; and UNREAL co-creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro , who based the Lifetime series on her AFI Conservatory Directing Workshop for Women short SEQUIN RAZE.

AFI Board of Trustees in attendance included: AFI Board of Trustees Chair Sir Howard Stringer, AFI Board of Directors Chair Bob Daly, Jon Avnet, Jim Breyer, John Burke, former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, Nancy Fisher, Jean Picker Firstenberg, Richard Frank, Jim Gianopulos, Brad Grey, Marshall Herskovitz, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Donna Langley, Debra Lee, Lori Lee, Ron Meyer, Tom Pollock, Rich Ross, Ted Sarandos, Chris Silbermann, Steven Spielberg, George Stevens, Jr., Kevin Tsujihara and Michael Wright.

Official sponsors included Audi and American Airlines, the official airline of the American Film Institute.

Tom Pollock, chair of the film jury and an AFI Board of Trustees Vice Chair, recognized the film honorees with a reading of the official rationales. Richard Frank, chair of the television jury and an AFI Board of Trustees Vice Chair, similarly acknowledged the TV honorees. The following rationales were recorded into the American Film Institute's almanac for 2015:

AFI AWARDS 2015 - FILM RATIONALES

THE BIG SHORT achieves the extraordinary - making sense of the 2008 market collapse and making it entertaining. Adam McKay's whip-smart satire pulses with brazen pacing, pop-up celebrity cameos and AAA performances from Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt. This endlessly innovative comedy is also an object lesson in greed's consequences for the many and, ultimately, a tale to break a nation's heart.

BRIDGE OF SPIES is history written in moving images and another chapter in this nation's collective chronicle brought to life by an American master, Steven Spielberg. A brilliant script by Matt Charman and Joel and Ethan Coen serves as code to crack this story of the Cold War, with Tom Hanks proving his place in the canon alongside cinema's great everyman heroes. His charge to defend a Soviet spy - portrayed in a transformative turn from Mark Rylance - embodies our nation in its finest hour, fighting for what's right no matter the cost.

CAROL sets the screen aglow with the light of longing as Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara transform a period piece into a timeless cry from defiant hearts. Todd Haynes serves their romance as a restorative cocktail, adding splashes of color to a repressive Eisenhower-era, when love was often seen in black-and-white. From luminous performances to sumptuous production, this is cinema's promise fulfilled - a haunting portrait in moving image

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