Veteran PR executive Vicky Eguia, who worked on several award winning movie campaigns such as Pan’s Labyrinth, La Vie en Rose and Amazon Studios’ Oscar winning Manchester by the Sea and The Salesman, has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 48.
Her family revealed the news in a Facebook post early Saturday.
For any reporter, publicist or filmmaker who worked with Vicky, they’ll remember her for her jubilant, graceful, patient and can-do spirit. As a journalist, whether you were working with Vicky on a breaking news story, or trying to land an interview with major talent during awards season (i.e. breakfast with Nic Winding Refn) or tickets to a big Cannes film premiere, she always delivered. There wasn’t an ask that was impossible.
Courtesy of J. Berney
For the last seven years, Vicky worked at Amazon Studios, her most recent position being Director of PR, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Community Relations. She joined Amazon Studios as the Head of Publicity for Amazon Original Movies in 2015. She was an integral part of the team that made history for Amazon Studios as the first-ever streamer to be nominated for a Best Picture and to win three Academy Awards for 2016’s Manchester By The Sea (Best Original Screenplay & Best Actor) & The Salesman (Best Foreign Language Film).
During her tenure, she oversaw the publicity campaigns for everything on the studio’s slate, including audience and award favorites The Big Sick, Cold War, The Sound Of Metal, Borat Subsequent Movie Film, One Night in Miami, Coming 2 America and many more.
Courtesy J. Berney
Throughout her career Vicky had a long-running collaboration with studio executive and indie distribution guru Bob Berney and his wife, marketing and PR executive Jeanne Berney. It was Jeanne who gave Vicky one of her first jobs in the business as an Account Executive in the film department at Rogers & Cowan in 2000.
Vicky worked with Bob Berney throughout his tenures at Amazon, Apparition, Picturehouse, and Newmarket Films. She handled a variety of campaigns for critically-acclaimed films such as Bernie, The Paperboy, Bright Star, The Young Victoria, A Prairie Home Companion, Downfall. At Newmarket, Vicky worked on Mel Gibson’s box office subtitled smash, The Passion of the Christ, which made over $370M at the domestic box office, as well as the Patty Jenkins 2003 title Monster which delivered a Best Actress Oscar win to Charlize Theron. At Picturehouse, Vicky played a key role in the awards campaigns for Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which won Oscars for Original Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Score, and La Vie en Rose, which took home two Oscars for Best Makeup and Best Actress, firing up Marion Cotillard’s career in Hollywood.
At Rogers & Cowan, Vicky specialized in corporate accounts for such clients as IFC Films, Lionsgate and Newmarket Films, working on the campaigns of such movies as Y Tu Mamá También, Whale Rider and the $368M-grossing My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Vicky was known for her love of film and every facet of the craft. She was a proud member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
Before Deadline, I had the opportunity to work with her on the PR side when I was repping Matt Wash’s directorial feature comedy High Road starring Ed Helms and Dylan O’Brien. Millennium Entertainment, where Vicky served as Vice President of Publicity, was the distributor of the movie. With Vicky, you always had a friend on the inside and we pulled off a great premiere at the Landmark on Pico and a plethora of press for a small indie movie.
“Vicky worked for me in so many capacities and we always had a great time,” Picturehouse COO Jeanne Berney tells Deadline, “From Showest to film campaigns to festivals, it was a magical time in the independent film business and she was a big part of it.”
“Vicky and I shared many adventures and a lot of laughs over the years, most recently at Amazon,” adds Picturehouse CEO Bob Berney, “I’ll always think of those fun times.”