The Empire Award for Best Newcomer (formerly known as Best Debut) was an Empire Award presented annually by the British film magazine "Empire" to honor a director with a breakthrough film or an actor who has delivered a breakthrough performance while working within the film industry.
 The Empire Award for Best Newcomer was first introduced at the 1st Empire Awards ceremony in 1996 with Bryan Singer receiving the award for his direction of "The Usual Suspects" and last presented at the 16th Empire Awards ceremony in 2011.
 Winners were voted by the readers of "Empire" magazine.
Mika Ronkainen (born August 6, 1970 in Kuusamo, Finland) is a Finnish film director from Oulu, Northern Finland.
 His international breakthrough film was "Screaming Men (2003)", a documentary film about a Finnish screaming male choir called Mieskuoro Huutajat, followed by "Freetime Machos (2009)", a documentary film about a rugby team which is allegedly the most northern and the third lousiest in the world.
 Screaming Men had its US premiere at Sundance Film Festival in 2004, and Freetime Machos at Tribeca Film Festival in 2010.
Tracie Laymon is a screenwriter, producer and film director.
 Laymon was raised in Houston, Texas, and studied film at the University of Texas at Austin.
 She began her film career with work in the Texas area, and several of her music videos and short films were recognized with film festival awards.
 She served in film production capacities in multiple movies, including "Matchstick Men" in 2003 and "The Alamo" in 2004.
 Laymon moved to California in 2005, and continued film production work there, serving as production assistant on films "The Ringer" in 2005 and "Blades of Glory" in 2007.
 Her short film "Inside" premiered in 2009 at the Milan International Film Festival in Milan, Italy, and won the award in "Best Short Film" from the Women's Image Network.
 She also directed the first ever half-hour comedy for the internet entitled "Goodnight Burbank", which premiered on Hulu.com in April 2011 and was personally acquired by Mark Cuban that same day.
 The shows then aired on Cuban's HDNet in the fall of 2011.
 Her most recent short film "A Hidden Agender" premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival and received the Jury Award for Best Dark Comedy at the Houston International Film Festival (also known as Worldfest Houston) in 2012.
 Laymon was also named to the Independent Film Channel's list of emerging "Icons" and "Film Innovators".
 She is currently in development of her first feature film, which she also wrote.
 The original screenplay received the Jury Award for Best Screenplay at the LA Comedy Festival in December 2013.
 Laymon is in development of this feature film and plans to direct it in Texas in 2017.
Quentin Tarantino is an American director, producer, screenwriter and actor, who has directed eight films and written all of them.
 He began his career in the late 1980s by directing, writing and starring in the black-and-white "My Best Friend's Birthday", a partially lost amateur short film which was never officially released.
 He impersonated musician Elvis Presley in a small role in the sitcom "The Golden Girls" (1988), and briefly appeared in "Eddie Presley" (1992).
 As an independent filmmaker, he directed, wrote and appeared in the crime thriller "Reservoir Dogs" (1992), which tells the story of five strangers who team up for a jewelry heist.
 It proved to be Tarantino's breakthrough film and was named the "Greatest Independent Film of all Time" by "Empire".
 His screenplay for Tony Scott's "True Romance" (1993) was nominated for a Saturn Award.
David Lowery (born December 26, 1980) is an American filmmaker based in Dallas, Texas.
 He has written, directed and edited several feature films.
Michael McGruther began his filmmaking career with the original screenplay "Tigerland", directed by Joel Schumacher and co-written by Ross Klavan.
 The critically acclaimed screenplay was nominated by IFP/West for Best First Screenplay and by the Political Film Society for the PFS Award in 2001.
 It is widely known as Colin Farrell's breakthrough film, garnering Farrell the Boston Society of Film Critics Best Actor Award and the London Critics Circle Film Award for British Newcomer of the year.
 Invigorated by the filmmaking process while on the set of "Tigerland", McGruther established BuffaloNickel Films.
 He then teamed up with Jersey Films and Universal Studios on two features: his original science fiction adventure titled "Lightspeed" (with Superman Returns director Bryan Singer attached to direct), and a coming-of-age drama titled "Sentenced to Nature", based on a New York Times article by author Charles Siebert.
 BuffaloNickel Films has since acquired the rights to several novels and short stories to produce.
 In 2001, "Extra Life", a drama about coming-of-age in the digital world; in 2004, Arthur C. Clarke's prophetic novel "Prelude to Space"; and in 2005, "Blood Son", based on the 1951 short story by legendary science fiction and horror writer Richard Matheson. "
Blood Son" marks McGruther's directorial debut, for which he won the Best Director Award at the 3rd.
 Annual Trenton Film Festival.
 He is currently in pre-production on the movie "Ghost Town".
 McGruther has also appeared in front of the camera, seen in several commercials and movies in the early 90’s including "Clockers" and "In & Out", and he has a cameo appearance in "Tigerland".
Mandala () is a 1981 South Korean film about Buddhist monks in Korea.
 This is considered by many critics to be director Im Kwon-taek's breakthrough film as a cinematic artist.
Lekha Washington is an Indian film actress and product designer, who has appeared in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada language films.
 She was first recognised for her work as a sculptor in 2002 and then as a theatre actress in Chennai based stage plays.
 After appearing as a video jockey with SS Music, Lekha's breakthrough film role was as an independent estranged sister in "Jayamkondaan" (2008), whilst she has gone on to portray roles in the multi-starrer "Vedam" and the comedy "Va".
Zaheeda Hussain (born 9 October 1944), commonly known by her mononym "Zaheeda", is an Indian film actress who worked in Bollywood in the 1970s.
 Born in Mumbai, she is daughter of Akhtar Hussain, who was film producer and son of director Jaddanbai.
 Her aunt was Bollywood actress Nargis Dutt, and her uncle was character actor Anwar Hussain.
 She acted in several movies such as "Anokhi Raat" (1968) with Sanjeev Kumar, "Gambler" (1971) and "Prem Pujari" (1970) with Dev Anand.
 After playing his heroine, she famously turned down the role of playing Dev Anand's sister, in cult hit "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" (1971), as she found it too bold, a role which was later done by Zeenat Aman and became her breakthrough film.
 After that her films like "Teen Chor" and "Prabhat" flopped ending her career.
 Zaheeda also acted in a DD1 serial Aamrapali (TV serial) in 2002.
Kurt Sayenga is a writer, director, and producer living in the Los Angeles area.
 He is the executive producer/showrunner of the science anthology series "Breakthrough", a coproduction of National Geographic Channel, GE, Imagine Entertainment, and Asylum Entertainment.
 The first season of the series, which premiered in 2015, featured films directed by Ron Howard, Paul Giamatti, Angela Bassett, Peter Berg, Akiva Goldsman, and Brett Ratner.
 The second season, which premiered May 2017, featured films directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, David Lowery, Shane Carruth and Kurt Sayenga, The Malloys, Steven Hoggard, and Shalini Kantayya.

Question: Which Breakthrough film director was based in Dallas, Texas?
Answer: David Lowery