Stanley Gilbert Hawes MBE, (19 January 1905 – 19 April 1991) was a British-born documentary film producer and director who spent most of his career in Australia, though he commenced his career in England and Canada.
He arrived in Australia in 1946, from the National Film Board of Canada, to take up a position as Producer-in-Chief with the Australian National Film Board, initially as a temporary assignment but made permanent within a couple of years of his arrival.
Hawes is regarded as working primarily in the classical style of documentary he learnt with John Grierson in the 1930s.
As Moran writes, 'Films such as School in the Mailbox, Flight Plan and The Queen in Australia make clear his aesthetic preference for the classic documentary rather than for drama or the more evocative, poetic forms of documentary'.
The award recognises the significant support he gave independent filmmakers in the documentary sector and is thus awarded to a person or organisation that makes an outstanding contribution to the documentary sector in Australia.