Autumn Durald Arkapaw Makes Oscar History With Best Cinematography Win

(SPOT.ph) The Best Cinematography category at the Oscars has been around since 1929. For almost a century, the winners had one thing in common: they're all men. That finally changed at the 2026 Academy Awards, when Filipino-American Autumn Durald Arkapaw took home the Oscar for her work on Sinners.

Her win is historic for several reasons: she’s the first woman ever to win Best Cinematography and also the first woman of color to do so. Durald Arkapaw was born in California in 1979 to a Filipino mother and an African-American Creole father.

Growing up, the future Oscar winner wasn’t surrounded by film sets or industry connections—just a mom who really loved movies. Durald Arkapaw has often credited her Filipino mother for introducing her to the magic of the big screen: “I was raised by a single mom. She would always take me to movies or we’d watch them at home. In the back of my mind, she played a big role in giving me a love for going to the theater.” 

Her Filipino grandparents on her mother’s side also provided early inspiration, as their travel photographs left a lasting impression on the cinematographer.

“They traveled a lot, and they took a lot of photographs, my grandmother had tons of photo books that I remember we would always look through. I had a relationship with photographs when I was growing up, it was a way that I could connect with family members or see the world, see where they traveled. Then I started doing my own photography in high school,” Durald Arkapaw told The Talks.

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Filmmaking wasn’t in the plan originally. Durald Arkapaw studied art history at Loyola Marymount University, where she developed an interest in visual composition and imagery. In 2017, she went on to train at the American Film Institute Conservatory, one of the most competitive cinematography programs in the United States.

Convincing her family that she wanted to pursue this path took some explaining at first. “It sounds crazy now because there weren’t as many female cinematographers. My parents didn’t even know what a cinematographer was,” Durald Arkapaw told Vogue Philippines.

Early in her career, she worked on commercials, music videos, and independent films before landing larger projects. One of her early creative partnerships was with director Gia Coppola, shooting films such as Palo Alto and Mainstream.

Soon, her work expanded beyond indie cinema. She served as cinematographer on the first season of Loki on Disney+ then collaborated with director Ryan Coogler on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

The partnership continued with Sinners, the film that ultimately earned her the Oscar. The project was technically ambitious, shot using large-format film cameras including IMAX 65mm and Ultra Panavision 70, which are formats typically reserved for large-scale cinematic productions. Working with these formats also marked another milestone for Durald Arkapaw, who became the first woman to shoot a feature film using large-format IMAX film cameras, which require specialized equipment and crews.

In the end, Sinners earned a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations, the most in Academy Awards history.

Before Durald Arkapaw, only three women had ever been nominated in the category: Rachel Morrison for Mudbound in 2018, Ari Wegner for The Power of the Dog in 2022, and Mandy Walker for Elvis in 2023.