Paul Garnes has been named president of Array Filmworks. The company’s current president, Sarah Bremner, is stepping down for a personal hiatus.
“Sarah is a thoughtful executive who has built a wonderful creative development team here and is respected by our showrunners and artists. I’m grateful for her time at Array, look forward to continuing our friendship and wish her good health and happiness always,” said Array founder Ava DuVernay.
Garnes is the long-time producing partner of DuVernay. He previously served as Array’s head of physical production. In his new role, he will oversee all aspects of creative development, physical production and post-production for the company’s television and film slate.
“Paul has been my true and trusted partner for the past decade, the one who takes my dreams off the page and makes them a reality on the set and beyond,” DuVernay said. “He’s simply the best at what he does and the way that he does it – with warmth and wisdom, gusto and grace. It brings me great joy to work even more closely with Paul as he leads ARRAY Filmworks into a new era with our stellar team.”
Garnes first joined Array in March 2020. He has overseen the company’s productions such as “Colin in Black and White” — based on the life of Colin Kaepernick — at Netflix as well as “DMZ” at HBO Max, “Naomi” at The CW, and “Queen Sugar” and “Cherish the Day” at OWN among many others.
His work with DuVernay dates back to 2011 on her Sundance-Award winning feature “Middle of Nowhere” and Academy Award-winning feature “Selma.”
“I first met Ava when she was a film publicist in the 90s, which led to me producing one of her early features on a shoestring budget,” said Garnes. “Since day one, we have had a creative and collaborative partnership that I treasure. I look forward to expanding our work together and continuing to produce stories with meaning and mission under Ava’s incredible vision.”
Prior to his time at Array, Garnes has held senior executive roles at companies like Foxx/King Productions and Simmons-Lathan Media Group. He has also worked as a producer, line producer and production manager on numerous films and series. He was at one time the vice president and executive in charge of production for the Tyler Perry Company.
(Pictured: Paul Garnes)