Autumn Durald Arkapaw Makes Oscar History — Why Her Cinematography Win Matters

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen Sinners or missed Wakanda Forever. If you’ve ever watched the controversial video for Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Money, you already know the work of Autumn Durald Arkapaw — the first woman to win the Oscar for cinematography.

Since 1929, when actress Janet Gaynor became the first woman ever to receive an Academy Award, the film industry has been waiting for a woman who would win the prestigious prize for work behind the camera. While audiences have long grown accustomed to women winning Oscars for acting, music, costume design, screenwriting, and occasionally directing, cinematography has remained widely perceived as a male-dominated field. Yet one Filipina cinematographer has managed to break through every barrier and become the first woman in history to take home the statuette in the Best Cinematography category. Autumn Durald Arkapaw has written her name into the history of film.

Why is Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s win so important for women?

Women cinematographers remain among the least represented professionals in the film industry. According to research by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, women are credited as directors of photography on only 5–8% of the most popular films. For years, those figures were even lower, often below 3%.

A historic Oscars breakthrough occurred when Rachel Morrison became the first woman ever nominated for Best Cinematography for Mudbound (at the 2018 ceremony), nearly 90 years after the Academy Awards were first established. The first woman to win the award was Mandy Walker in 2023. It took another three years before audiences saw a woman step onto the stage to accept the statuette for Best Cinematography again.

Why are there so few women behind the camera? Research and industry interviews point to several reasons for women’s low representation in this profession. The role has historically been perceived as highly technical and “male-coded.” Cinematographers are often hired through informal networks and recommendations. Working conditions — including long shoots and frequent travel — can make career continuity more difficult. There has also long been a lack of visible role models and structured mentorship programs.

Autumn Durald Arkapaw: A powerful woman with powerful roots

Arkapaw often highlights her heritage, especially the cultural legacy passed down by her Filipina mother. Her mother, Peggy Bautista, comes from a large Roman Catholic family with roots in Pampanga in the Philippines. According to reports, Arkapaw’s maternal grandfather, Guillermo Pagan Bautista, grew up in Masantol and survived the Bataan Death March during World War II. Family accounts say he later joined resistance forces before eventually serving in the US Army. After the war, the family moved abroad and later settled in California.

In tribute to this legacy, the cinematographer wears a tattoo on her wrist featuring her grandfather’s initials written in Baybayin script. On her father’s side, her family traces its roots to African American Creole communities in New Orleans and Mississippi. She is married to Australian cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, and they have one child. She keeps her private life largely out of the spotlight, focusing on family and her career in the film industry.

Arkapaw studied art history, and one of the courses she took helped guide her toward film — perhaps even more so the classics she watched, such as Broadway Danny Rose and Raging Bull. Her teenage love of photography soon took a new direction, and the future Oscar winner began working as a camera assistant. In 2009, she graduated from the American Film Institute Conservatory with a degree in cinematography. Just four years later, she stood behind the camera of the film Palo Alto, which brought her international recognition. Her visual vision also shaped Marvel’s series Loki and the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

With Sinners, she went a step further than many of her male peers. Arkapaw became the first female director of photography to shoot using IMAX 65mm and Ultra Panavision formats with IMAX 15-perf cameras and KODAK EKTACHROME film — a rare large-format approach that gave the film its sweeping visual style.

A woman who empowers other women

And what did she do after writing herself into the pages of film history? She invited all the women in the room to stand up and share her moment.

“I really want all the women in the room to stand up because I feel like I don’t get here without you guys,” Arkapaw said.

This is precisely what she is known for among her colleagues. She strongly believes in empowering women, mentorship, building professional networks, and opening doors for other women in the industry.