Cine Gear VIP Party

Awards & Reception

Los Angeles 2026

Friday, June 5th, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

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Courthouse Square, Universal Studios Backlot

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2026 Awards Recipients

Ed Lachman, ASC

Cinematography Legend Award

Click to Read Biography

Edward Lachman, ASC is a world-renowned cinematographer whose work spans over 100 titles across narrative, experimental, and documentary forms. He has collaborated with a diverse, array of directors to tell unexpected stories, including Todd Haynes, Steven Soderbergh, Robert Altman, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, Pablo Larraín, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Volker Schlöndorff, Ulrich Seidl, and Jean-Luc Godard, among others.

Beyond cinematography, Lachman is recognized as a visual artist whose video and photography installations have been exhibited at The Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, The Ludwig Museum in Germany, and other galleries throughout the world. He is also inventor of the EL Zone System exposure tool based on stop values that relate one-to-one with lenses and light meters.

Covering four decades, Lachman's feature film credits include: Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Less Than Zero (1987), Light Sleeper (1992), My Family (1995), Selena (1997), The Virgin Suicides (1999), The Limey (1999), Erin Brockovich (2000), Far From Heaven (2002), Ken Park (2002, also co-directed), A Prairie Home Companion (2006), Import/Export (2007), Life During Wartime (2009), Howl (2010), Paradise: Trilogy (2011–2012), Wiener-Dog (2016),  Wonderstruck (2017), Dark Waters (2019), El Conde (2023), and Maria (2024). His latest, The Exiles, filmed in Taiwan and directed by Midi Z, is in post-production.

Lachman's filmmaking has earned hundreds of prestigious honors including four Academy Award nominations. Two Best Cinematography nods resulted from collaborations with Todd Haynes for Far From Heaven (2002) and Carol (2015). His work on HBO's miniseries, Mildred Pierce (2011) received a Primetime Emmy nomination. A 2023 collaboration with Pablo Larraín on El Conde became his third Academy Award nomination and was an ASC award nominee. In 2024 another Larraín pairing on Maria brought Lachman his fourth Academy nomination along with a win for the ASC's Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Feature Film. Over the years Camerimage has bestowed Lachman with the Bronze Frog for I'm not There, Silver Frogs for Far from Heaven and El Conde, a Golden Frog for Carol, and recently, a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011 Lachman shared the Camerimage Cinematographer-Director Duo Award with Todd Haynes.

Among distinctions, Lachman remains the only American to receive Germany's respected Marburg Camera Award for his body of work. In 2017 he was honored by his peers with the American Society of Cinematographers Lifetime Achievement Award. Other notable prizes include the Telluride Medallion, the Gotham Tribute, and the Angenieux ExcelLens in Cinematography at Cannes (2018). In 2019, the word's oldest cinematography film festival, Manaki Brothers, awarded him the Golden Camera 300, their highest honor.

View Bio and Info in Cine Gear Program

Caleb Deschanel, ASC

Legacy Lifetime Award

Click to Read Biography

Caleb Deschanel studied at the USC School of Cinema and was in the first class at the American Film Institute. His first feature as a director of photography was Carroll Ballard’s The Black Stallion. He followed that with Hal Ashby’s film Being There both released in 1979. Several years later Deschanel was honoured with his first Academy Award nomination for his cinematography on Phil Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983) and  the next year another nomination for Barry Levinson’s The Natural (1984).

He has directed 2 feature films, The Escape Artist for producer Francis Coppola in 1981 and Crusoe for Island pictures in 1988. He has directed 3 episodes of the original TV series Twin Peaks, several episodes of Law and Order and one episode of the long running TV show Bones.

He filmed Fly Away Home (1996) – and nominated for his third Academy Award. Shot Forest Whitaker’s Hope Floats (1998) and Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot (2000). The latter landed him his fourth Oscar® nomination and was the winner of the ASC Feature Cinematography Award. In 2004 The Motion Picture Academy honoured Caleb with a fifth Oscar® nomination for his photography on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

His filmography includes such titles as National Treasure, The Spiderwick Chronicles , Robert Towne’s Ask the Dust (2006) and Nick Cassavetes’ My Sister’s Keeper (2009). Caleb received a lifetime achievement reward from the ASC in 2010. He worked with William Friedkin on Killer Joe, Chris McQuarie  on Jack Reacher, and Warren Beatty  Rules Don’t Apply (2016).

Caleb was nominated for a Sixth Oscar® in 2018 for his cinematography on Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck’s Never Look Away, a film which also got an Academy Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. His first venture into animation was his work on the vritual reality filmed “the Lion King” with Jon Favreau and Disney in 2019.

He is currently involved in the filming of Wildwood for Laika Animation Studios and director Travis Knight to be released at the end of 2026.

View Bio and Info in Cine Gear Program

 

 

M. David Mullen, ASC

Karl Kresser Heart of the Community Award

Click to Read Biography

 
M. David Mullen, ASC studied filmmaking at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he received his MFA. Since then, he has photographed almost forty independent feature films, plus several television series and pilots.
 
He was nominated for the IFP Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography twice, for Twin Falls Idaho and Northfork. He won the Dublin Film Critics Circle Award for Best Feature Cinematography for The Love Witch.  He won three Emmys and two ASC Awards for Amazon Studio’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  He was also awarded the ASC Mentor Award for his educational work and the ASC Career Achievement Award in Television.
 
His television work also includes Big Love, The United States of Tara, Smash, Get Shorty, Westworld, and Etoile. plus the pilot episodes of The Good Wife and Designated Survivor. He co-authored the 3rd Edition of the classic textbook Cinematography and co-edited the 11th Edition of the American Cinematographer Manual.
 

Gabriel Mays

AbelCine Director of Rental

As Director of Rental, Gabriel Mays oversees growth of Rental by nurturing business relationships and unifying the customer experience nationwide. In his previous role as the LA Rental Manager, Gabriel worked with producers, cinematographers, and assistant camera operators to provide the highest level of customer service possible. He also ensured that all their equipment needs are met on budget. Before coming to AbelCine in 2015, Gabriel previously worked as a Communications Instructor and Electronic Media Engineer at a private university. He taught various courses in electronic media, including film, broadcasting, and digital arts. Gabriel is an award-winning cinematographer, director, producer, and editor known for his innovative research and implementation of new film techniques. He was also one of the first to implement HDSLR cameras into filmmaking. He has been the cinematographer on dozens of independent films, documentaries, and music videos.