History was made Sunday night at the 98th Academy Awards when Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman and the first woman of color ever to win the Academy Award for best cinematography. Her win came for Sinners, the record-setting film directed by Ryan Coogler that dominated this year’s ceremony from the moment the evening began. For Durald Arkapaw, it was both a first Oscar nomination and a first Oscar win, a milestone that arrived in one of the most emotionally charged moments of the entire night.
She defeated nominees Dan Laustsen for Frankenstein, Darius Khondji for Marty Supreme, Michael Bowman for One Battle After Another, and Adolfo Dávila for Train Dreams.
A barrier that took nearly a century to break
The significance of Durald Arkapaw’s win cannot be overstated. The Academy Award for best cinematography has existed since the very first Oscar ceremony in 1929, and in nearly a century of nominees and winners, no woman had ever taken home the prize. Earlier this awards season, Durald Arkapaw had already made history simply by becoming the first woman of color ever nominated in the category. Sunday night, she went one step further and won it.
Her path to this moment was shaped by both extraordinary talent and a willingness to take on challenges that others might have considered impossible. Sinners was shot using both IMAX and Ultra Panavision 70 formats, making it one of the most technically ambitious productions of the year. Durald Arkapaw also became the first woman ever to shoot a film in large-format IMAX, often operating the 65-pound camera herself during production on set.
A personal connection to the story she was telling
What made Durald Arkapaw’s work on Sinners more than just a technical achievement was how deeply personal the project was for her. Like director Ryan Coogler, she grew up in the Bay Area. She carries Filipino heritage from her mother’s side and Black Creole roots through her father, with family ties to New Orleans and Mississippi the very regions where Sinners is set.
Filming in the South carried a weight for her that went far beyond the professional. She has spoken about how the experience connected her to her family’s history and the lives of her ancestors, giving the film’s most visually striking sequences — including a remarkable scene set in a juke joint a resonance that only someone with that kind of personal relationship to the material could fully bring to the screen.
A speech that asked every woman in the room to stand
Durald Arkapaw took the stage overwhelmed and radiant, immediately scanning the audience for her husband and her son Aiden before beginning to speak. She described Ryan Coogler with genuine warmth, reflecting on how he always responds to her thanks by turning the gratitude back around a quality she said spoke to the kind of collaborator and person he truly is.
She then named the women who had shaped her journey, including cinematographers Ellen Kuras and Rachel Morrison, both of whom were present in the room. She described herself as a little girl whose mother told her she could do anything and said that girl had to find her way to Ryan, to Ellen, and to Rachel before this moment could ever be possible.
Then came the moment that stopped the ceremony entirely. Durald Arkapaw asked every woman in the room to stand, telling them she could not have reached this podium without them. The room rose. She thanked Warner Brothers, her crew, and her cast naming Michael, Delroy, Wunmi, Miles, Jamie, Omar, Haile, and Jack among others before closing with her husband, her son, and her parents.
She called them beautiful. She meant every word.
Autumn Durald Arkapaw made nearly a century of history disappear on Sunday night. What she built in its place will last just as long.
Source: News.Az / 98th Academy Awards broadcast / ABC
Leave a Reply