It may not be the most glamorous Oscar’s category, but it is certainly an important one. And for 90 years, its winners had one thing in common: they were all men.
This year is different. On Tuesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its selections for the 2018 Oscar Awards, which will take place on March 4, and for the first time in its history the award for Best Cinematography may go to a woman.
The distinction of first woman to be nominated for Best Cinematography goes to Rachel Morrison for her work on the drama “Mudbound,” Vox reports.
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“Mudbound” faces stiff competition this March, with “Blade Runner 2049,” “Darkest Hour,” “Dunkirk,” and “The Shape of Water” also nominated.
Perhaps more so than any other category, the field of cinematography is completely oversaturated by men. According to Indiewire, just 3% of cinematographers in top-grossing movies between 2009 and 2014 were women.
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The disparity in cinematography is a result of unequal hiring practices, entrenched gender roles in Hollywood, and access to equipment, according to cinematographer Elle Schneider, who wrote in an op-ed for Indiewire.
“Women don’t usually get a chance to get familiar enough with any camera equipment to learn how to perfect the images that will get them hired on a professional level,” Schneider wrote. “These are valuable resources, key to anyone trying to break into the industry, that women, generally, do not have access to — and most of the time don’t even know they don’t have access to.”
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According to Vox, women were initially excluded from cinematography work because it was said the equipment was too heavy for them to hold.
But now, pioneering women — including the recently-nominated Morrison; Ellen Kuras, who worked on the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind;” and Autumn Durald, who shot Gia Coppola’s debut film “Palo Alto — are lifting up future generations of female cinematographers.
Whether Morrison’s trailblazing work finds Academy support will be revealed this March