DHAKA: Alejandro Inarritu has won the top prize at the Directors Guild of America (DGA) awards for ‘The Revenant’, adding weight to his chances at the Oscars.

‘The Revenant’, starring Leonardo Di Caprio as a frontiersman fighting for survival, leads the Oscars race with 12 nominations, including best director.

Past DGA award winners have often gone on to claim the best director Oscar and the best film category, reports the BBC.

Inarritu won the DGA award for ‘Birdman’ in 2015 and then won the Oscars double.

The DGA is the industry’s leading group of film and TV directors and its opinion carries a lot of weight.

To date, there have been only seven occasions when the DGA winner has not then won the subsequent Academy Award.

The group also chose Matthew Heineman as best documentary maker for Cartel Land.

Heineman’s film focuses on vigilante groups fighting drug cartels on both sides of the US/Mexican border.

Heineman said, ‘I hope that this film will give voice to those trapped by the cycle of violence in hopes that one day the cycle will end’.

BDST: 2152 HRS, FEB 07, 2016
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