Matthew Heineman wins Directors Guild Award for 'City of Ghosts,' second DGA victory in three years

He wins over Oscar-nominated directors Steve James and Bryan Fogel

It's been an active week for Matthew Heineman.

He wrapped shooting in London a few days ago on his first fictional film, A Private War, about the late war correspondent Marie Colvin.

On Friday his new docu-series The Trade -- about the heroin trade and the opioid crisis --  premiered on Showtime.

And on Saturday he won the Directors Guild Award for his documentary City of Ghosts. It was the second DGA Award of is career, coming just two years after he won the award for Cartel Land.

City of Ghosts, about courageous citizen journalists in Raqqa, Syria, who risked their lives to report on the ISIS takeover of their city, earned a spot on the Oscar documentary shortlist, but did not make the final cut of five Oscar nominees.

​Heineman's DGA win came over two directors who earned Oscar nominations: Steve James of Abacus: Small Enough to Jail and Bryan Fogel of Icarus. The other DGA nominees were Errol Morris for Wormwood and Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, directors of the PBS series The Vietnam War.

Director Matthew Heineman at an event in Los Angeles in December 2015.