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Julia Roberts honored with the Academy Museum’s Inaugural Icon Award for her decades-long career in cinema during the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Second Annual Gala. The Star-Studded event raised $10 million.

Gala Honors Miky Lee, Sir Steve McQueen, Julia Roberts, and Tilda Swinton. With Featured Performance from Diana Ross, Gala was Co-Chaired by Halle Berry, Jason Blum, Ryan Murphy, and Lupita Nyong’o and Presented by Rolex.

LOS ANGELES, CA (October 15, 2022) – The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which held its second annual gala tonight, raised $10 million to support the museum’s access, education, and programming initiatives. Dedicated to the arts, sciences, and artists of moviemaking, the gala was generously presented by Rolex—founding supporter and official watch partner of the Academy Museum—and co-chaired by Academy AwardⓇ-winning actor and Academy Museum supporter Halle Berry, Academy Museum trustee and producer Jason Blum, Academy Museum trustee and screenwriter-director-producer Ryan Murphy, and Academy Award-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o. 

The celebratory evening was a star-studded affair that honored four Hollywood icons for their contributions to film both past and present. George Clooney presented Academy Award-winning actor Julia Roberts with the inaugural Academy Museum Gala Icon Award for her decades-long career in cinema and her significant global cultural impact.

The Visionary Award was presented to Academy Award-winning actor Tilda Swinton by longtime friend and collaborator Luca Guadagnino for her extensive body of work that has advanced the art of cinema. This year’s Vantage Award was presented by Daniel Kaluuya to Academy Award-winning director, producer, and writer Sir Steve McQueen for his work helping to contextualize and challenge dominant narratives around cinema.

The Icon, Visionary, and Vantage Awards, fabricated by UAP, are solid cast stainless steel statuettes inspired by historic versions of the OscarⓇ statuette; they are mirror polished by hand and attached to a cast bronze base with an engraved stainless steel nameplate affixed. Groundbreaking producer and Academy Museum trustee, Miky Lee received the Pillar Award from Jeffrey Katzenberg acknowledging her exemplary leadership and support for the international film community.

The Pillar Award, designed by the Haas Brothers and fabricated by UAP, is solid cast bronze, hand polished, hand stamped, and triple plated in nickel, copper, and 24k gold.

Now in its second year, the Academy Museum Gala is an annual celebration that reflects the museum’s mission to advance the understanding, celebration, and preservation of cinema and to expand knowledge and conversation about cinema as a global art form and cultural force.

The event was attended by some of Hollywood’s most prolific and notable actors, filmmakers, and industry executives as well as members of the event’s host committee who came together to support the museum. Guests included: Congressman Adam Schiff, Adrien Brody, Alan Bergman, Alana Haim, Alana and Steve Polacheck, Academy Museum trustee Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, Alexa Demie, Alexandra Daddario, Alicia Vikander, Allison Janney, Amal and George Clooney, Amber Valletta, Andrea Nevins, Academy Museum trustee Arnaud Boetsch, Ashton Sanders, Ava DuVernay, BJ Novak, Academy CEO Bill Kramer, Academy COO and Academy Museum General Counsel Brendan Connell, Jr., Brian Swardstrom, Brooklyn and Nicola Peltz Beckham, Bryan Lourd, Brynn Saban, Chloe Zhao, Christina Ricci, Chudney and Joshua Faulk, Cleo Wade, Colman Domingo, Daniel Kaluuya, Danny Elfman, Danny Ramirez, Academy Museum trustee David Dolby and Natasha Dolby, Derek Blasberg, Diana Silvers, Diego Boneta, Djuna Bel, Academy Museum trustee Dominic Ng, Donna Langley, Eddie Redmayne, Eiza González, Elvis Mitchell, Emma Stone, Academy Museum trustee Eric Esrailian, Este Haim, Evan Ellis Ross, Gia Coppola, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Glenn Close, Ha Jung-Woo, Hailey Bieber, Honor Titus, Academy Museum Director and President Jacqueline Stewart, Academy President Janet Yang, Academy Museum trustee Jason Blum and Lauren Schuker, Jay Ellis, Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg, Jeremy Scott, Jeremy Strong, Jessica Chastain, Jim Gianopulos, Jodie Turner-Smith, Joe Jonas, John Cho, Jonathan Majors, Judd Apatow, Academy Museum trustee Julia Gouw, Juliana Margulies, Jung Woo-Sung, Jurnee Smollet, Kaia Gerber, Kaitlyn Dever, Academy Museum trustee Katherine Oliver, Ke Huy Quan, Keke Palmer, Kelly Sawyer Patricoff, Kerry Washington, Kevin Huvane, Academy Museum trustee Kimberly Steward, Laura Dern, Laura Harrier, Lee Byung-hun, Leslie Mann, Lena Dunham, Lily Collins, Lous and the Yazuka, Luca Guadagnino, Mark Bradford, Max Minghella, Mia Goth, Michelle Yeoh, Mindy Kaling, Naomi Scott, Natasha Lyonne, Ness Saban, Nicholas Ghesquiere, Nikolai Haas, Olivia Wilde, Park Chan-wook, Precious Lee, Raja Rajamannar, Rebel Wilson, Regina Hall, Ron Howard, Academy Museum trustee Ryan Murphy, Selena Gomez, Selma Blair,  Sophie Turner, Spike and Tonya Lewis Lee, Stephanie Hsu, Stephen Galloway, Sterling K. Brown, Taylor Russell, Thuso Mbedu, Van Jones, Vanessa Burghardt, Whitney Peak, Yoon Jong-bin, and Youn Yuh-Jung. 

Following a cocktail hour in Fanny’s Restaurant, the RAISE choir lead guests to a Wolfgang puck-inspired dinner on the Dolby Family Terrace. In a room inspired by the Hollywood landmark restaurant, Perino’s, guests were treated to a special musical performance by the iconic Diana Ross.

Event production and design were overseen by Gala Creative Director Lisa Love, Artistic Director Raúl Àvila, with musical direction by Keith Baptista, choreography by Jen Green, and costume direction by Jacqui Getty. 


ABOUT ROLEX AND CINEMA
For many decades, Rolex has maintained close ties with the world of cinema. Its watches have played a role in numerous films, including Oscar-winning masterpieces. The company promotes excellence, encourages the preservation and transmission of the cinematic arts, and celebrates progress by accompanying cinema legends and budding talents: through its Testimonees such as Martin Scorsese and James Cameron, its partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative with its mentorships for talented young filmmakers. Rolex has partnered with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2017, serving as Proud Sponsor of the Oscars , hosting the event’s Greenroom, while also supporting the Governors Awards, recognizing lifetime achievement in film and is the exclusive watch of the Academy. To assist in the preservation of film history for future generations, Rolex became a Founding Supporter of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Through its support of the film industry, Rolex champions excellence, the perpetuation of knowledge, the conservation of the art of filmmaking, and the rise of new talent.

About the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures 
The Academy Museum is the largest museum in the United States devoted to the arts, sciences, and artists of moviemaking. The museum advances the understanding, celebration, and preservation of cinema through inclusive and accessible exhibitions, screenings, programs, initiatives, and collections. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, the museum’s campus contains the restored and revitalized historic Saban Building—formerly known as the May Company building (1939)—and a soaring spherical addition. Together, these buildings contain 50,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, two state-of-the-art theaters, the Shirley Temple Education Studio, and beautiful public spaces that are free and open to the public. These include: The Walt Disney Company Piazza and the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby, which houses the Spielberg Family Gallery, Academy Museum Store, and Fanny’s Restaurant and Café. The Academy Museum exhibition galleries are open seven days a week, with hours Sunday through Thursday from 10am to 6pm and Friday and Saturday from 10am to 8pm. 

Academy Museum Gala to Honor producer Miky Lee, writer Steve McQueen, and actor Tilda Swinton on October 15, 2022.

GALA CO-CHAIRS ARE HALLE BERRY, JASON BLUM, RYAN MURPHY, AND LUPITA NYONG’OTHE EVENING IS SUPPORTED BY ROLEX.

Los Angeles, Calif.- March 16, 2022—The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures today announced details of its second annual gala, to be held on October 15, 2022. The Academy Museum Gala will celebrate the acclaimed new museum’s one-year anniversary and will honor Academy Museum Trustee and groundbreaking producer Miky Lee, Academy Award®-winning director, producer, and writer Steve McQueen, and Academy Award-winning actor Tilda Swinton.

The evening is being co-chaired by Academy Award-winning actor and Academy Museum supporter Halle Berry, Academy Museum Trustee and producer Jason Blum,Academy Museum Trustee and screenwriter, director, producer Ryan Murphy,and Academy Award-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o. The evening is presented by Rolex and will raise vital funds to support the museum’s access, education, and programming initiatives. Rolex is also the official watch partner and founding supporter of the Academy Museum.

Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy Museum, said, “Our inaugural Gala in 2021 was a wonderful celebration of the artists and patrons of the Academy Museum. It was an incredible reminder of the power, artistry, diversity, and resilience of our film industry. At our 2022 Gala, we are deeply honored to recognize three members of our international film community whose outstanding achievements inspire us all: Miky Lee, Steve McQueen, and Tilda Swinton. We express our gratitude to Halle Berry, Jason Blum, Ryan Murphy, and Lupita Nyong’o for hosting this important evening and to Rolex for being a steadfast and engaged supporter of the Academy Museum Gala and global cinema.”

The three awards presented annually at the Academy Museum Gala reflect the museum’s mission to advance the understanding, celebration, and preservation of cinema and to contextualize and challenge dominant narratives around cinema.

  • The gala’s Vantage Award, honoring an artist or scholar who has helped to contextualize and challenge dominant narratives around cinema, will be given to Steve McQueen.
  • Tilda Swinton, an actress known for dedicating herself to collaborations with some of cinema’s most daring innovators, will receive the Visionary Award, honoring an artist or scholar whose extensive body of work has advanced the art of cinema.
  • Miky Lee will receive the gala’s Pillar Award, which acknowledges exemplary leadership and support for the Academy Museum.

The 2021 Academy Museum Gala raised more than $11MM for the museum’s film, educational, and access programming. Additional details about the 2022 Gala will be announced in the coming months.

ABOUT THE HONOREES
Miky Lee (Mie Kyung Lee) is vice chairwoman of South Korea’s CJ Group and is responsible for the overall strategic direction and management of the group’s entertainment and media subsidiary, CJ ENM. CJ ENM is the country’s foremost film and television studio, cable operator, and music producer.

Lee earned her BA at Seoul National University and received her MA in Asian Studies from Harvard. In 1994, Lee founded the entertainment and media division of CJ and invested in DreamWorks SKG as one of the early investors. Since then, Lee has continued to strengthen CJ’s presence by leading the global phenomenon of the Korean cultural movement. In fact, she was the key driving force behind K-POP’s global success, creating and growing KCON, the world’s largest fan celebration of Korean culture and music.

Lee was on the Forbes Asia list of Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen in 2012 and 2014. In 2017, Lee was named one of the founding Leadership Champions of the World Bank affiliated Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi).

CJ ENM has been involved in films such as Jung Ji-woo’s Happy End (1999), Park Chan-wook’s Joint Security. Area (2000), and Kang Woo-suk’s Silmido (2003). In 2019, Lee was executive producer of Parasite, the first foreign language film in history to win the Best Picture Oscar; she was later named The Hollywood Reporter’sInternational Producer of the Year in 2020. CJ ENM r ecently acquired the production-distribution company Endeavor Content.

Lee has been a Board Member of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures since 2019 and currently serves are the Board’s Vice Chair. She has been deeply supportive of the museum’s expansive AAPI film programming.

Steve McQueen is a Turner Prize and Academy Award-winning artist and filmmaker. In all of his work, McQueen is committed to telling deep and compelling truths that are often untold or overlooked.

In 2008, McQueen’s critically acclaimed first feature Hunger, a historical drama about the 1981 Irish hunger strike, won the Camera d ’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His second feature Shame, about the horrors of addiction, won two awards when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2011. His third film  12 Years A Slave (2013), an adaptation of Solomon Northup’s 1853 slave narrative memoir, received numerous prizes, most notably winning three Academy Awards including Best Picture. In 2018, he released  Widowsstarring Viola Davis, who was nominated for a Best Actress BAFTA.

McQueen’s most recent project, Small Axe, is an anthology of five films which brings to life the experiences of London’s West Indian community. An unprecedented two of the films were selected for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival. As well as being nominated for a Golden Globe, the series of films won LA Film Critics Best Picture 2020. The anthology reflects the Black British experience from the late

1960s to the early 1980s.

McQueen is currently working on Occupied City, a new documentary that looks at Amsterdam under Nazi occupation during World War II.

Tilda Swinton’s cinematic resume is varied and growing. She has appeared in a multitude of films, starting in 1985 with Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio.  She and Jarman made seven more films together, including The Last of England (1987), War Requiem (1989), The Garden (1990), Edward II (1991) (for which she won the Best Actress award at the 1991 Venice International Film Festival), and Wittgenstein (1993), before Jarman’s death in 1994.  She gained wider international recognition in 1992 with her portrayal of the title character in Orlando, based on the novel by Virginia Woolf and directed by Sally Potter.

She has established ongoing filmmaking relationships with, among others, Jim Jarmusch, Joel and Ethan Coen, Lynne Ramsay, Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, and Bong Joon Ho. She has worked with Hungarian master Béla Tarr and with Judd Apatow. In 2020, she made the greatly acclaimed The Human Voice with Pedro Almodóvar.

Since 2008, she has curated bespoke film festivals, both in and around her home village in Scotland and internationally. Always intended to be unexpected and inspired by wonder and the enchantment of communal experience, these magical gatherings—informed by treasure hunts, children’s parties, and flash-mob spontaneity—are testament to her dedication to what she calls Big Cinema, to which she remains devoted.

She received both the BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress of 2008 for Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton (2007).  In 2020, she was the recipient of both a BFI Fellowship and a Leone d’Oro at the Venice film festival for her lifetime’s work.

In 2021, Tilda Swinton’s work included Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, Joanna Hogg’s Souvenir 2, and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch. 2022 will see the premieres of George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing with Idris Elba, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, Joanna Hogg’ s The Eternal Daughter, and Julio Torres’s untitled feature comedy with A24.

About Rolex
For almost a century, Rolex and cinema have enjoyed close ties. A kinship that started spontaneously—Rolex watches, a symbol of fortitude and strength, appeared on actors’ wrists in many memorable films—has grown ever stronger over the years, notably through the watchmaker’s active support for film directors, whether established or rising talents. The close relationship between Rolex and the film industry was formalized in 2017 when the brand signed a partnership agreement with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Rolex thereby became the Academy’s Exclusive Watch and Proud Sponsor of the Oscars ceremony, for which it also designs and hosts the Greenroom, an elegant space where presenters and guests mingle before going on stage. In 2018, the brand became a sponsor of the Academy’s annual Governors Awards honoring lifetime achievement. Its support of the Academy Museum is part of this broadening relationship. The two organizations are united by a commitment to excellence, a sense of history and a mission to preserve and celebrate the creation of extraordinary works—masterpieces.

Images: (left) Miky Lee, photo by Tracy Kumono; (center) Steve McQueen, photo by John Russo; (right) Tilda Swinton, photo credit: Michael Lavine / CPi Syndication

About the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures 
The Academy Museum is the largest museum in the United States devoted to the arts, sciences, and artists of moviemaking. The museum advances the understanding, celebration, and preservation of cinema through inclusive and accessible exhibitions, screenings, programs, initiatives, and collections. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, the museum’s campus contains the restored and revitalized historic Saban Building—formerly known as the May Company building (1939)—and a soaring spherical addition. Together, these buildings contain 50,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, two state-of-the-art theaters, the Shirley Temple Education Studio, and beautiful public spaces that are free and open to the public. These include: The Walt Disney Company Piazza and the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby, which houses the Spielberg Family Gallery, Academy Museum Store, and Fanny’s restaurant and café. The Academy Museum exhibition galleries are open seven days a week, with hours Sunday through Thursday from 10am to 6pm and Friday and Saturday from 10am to 8pm.