SPOTLIGHT March 2026: Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Cinematographer Supreme, SINNERS

Although renowned Afro-Filipina cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw has been showered with accolades and awards from early in her career, the filmmaker has shown herself a trailblazer once again this year. Ryan Coogler’s critically acclaimed southern gothic horror film Sinners has led to Durald Arkapaw becoming the first woman of color and the fourth woman ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. With Sinners, she’s also the first female DP to shoot a feature film on both IMAX 65mm and Ultra Panavision 70.

Many of those who have seen Sinners since its release on April 18th of last year are still haunted by the 10-minute juke joint musical sequence. The scene transcends its 1930s Mississippi setting to become a timeless continuum of Black music and dance, incorporating everything from West African traditions, to 70s era guitar a-la-Jimi Hendrix, 80s DJ spinning, and modern hip-hop. How fitting, then, that everything from the writing and direction, cinematography and production design, to the costumes, were all created by artists of color. The creativity of those departments has been awarded with 5 of record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations the film has been given this year.

The question is, how has Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s career path led to this level of success? Let’s learn about this artist, who has become an inspiration to aspiring female filmmakers everywhere.

EARLY LIFE

Autumn Durald Arkapaw was born in Southern California, and at the age of two, moved with her mother to the San Francisco bay area. Of Filipino descent on her mother’s side and African American creole on her father’s side, she was raised by a single mom, and her mother’s extensive Filipino family. They were an artistic and talented bunch, and Autumn found inspiration in her photographer mother’s work and large photo album collection her family kept of their travels. Movies were woven into the fabric of her childhood, and she was introduced to sophisticated character studies like Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters at an early age. She also tinkered with photography and filmmaking as a child, before turning focus on to the arts and majoring in art history at Loyola Marymount University. At LMU, she wrote a paper on black and white films that sparked her interest in cinematography. During her research, she first found a lack of female representation in the field. She then discovered a few role models, including DP Ellen Kuras, who shot Ted Demme’s film Blow.

BUILDING A CAREER

After LMU, Durald Arkapaw worked for a few years in advertising at AOL-Time Warner, but her passion continued to call her. She began shooting on weekends, ultimately turning away from the corporate world, and committing to cinematography as a career. She spend her nights and weekends shooting independent short films with a camcorder, and working as a camera assistant to build her portfolio. Lensing projects in the indie world, with its tiny budgets and limited resources, gave her the creative freedom and confidence that held her in great stead later when she took on large scale work. She applied to the AFI Conservatory, but was rejected. That’s where mentorship became crucial.

MENTORSHIP MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

American Society of Cinematographers and DP President Stephen Lighthill gained prominence with his handheld work on documentaries like Gimme Shelter and Berkeley in the Sixties. During the admissions process for the AFI graduate program in cinematography, he served as the head of that department. He’s the one who rejected her first application, suggesting she get more professional set experience before reapplying. She saw that advise as positive reinforcement and a push for her to hone her craft, which led to an essential turning point in her career. She found work on the series On the Road in America, where she acted as DP on the documentary’s New York episode, then reapplied and was accepted to the AFI in 2009.

She gained her first experience lensing a feature with the micro-budgeted feature Macho, in collaboration with an AFI classmate. It was during this time she began honing her style, developing the luminous visuals and the use of anamorphic lenses for which she is now, in part, recognized. Those elements are particularly in evidence on 2013’s Palo Alto. A classmate of hers was slated to shoot the Gia Coppola indie, but had to bow out, and suggested Durald Arkapaw as a replacement. It was on that project that she found her first deep connection with a writer/director. Their collaborations have continued throughout the years, including partnering on last year’s The Last Showgirl.

MAKING MARVEL

Durald Arkapaw began getting hired more frequently, lensing a number of commercials and music videos for musicians like Haim, Arcade Fire, and The Weeknd. This continued with her work on Spike Jonze’s Beastie Boys Story in 2020. It was with these jobs that she strengthened her choices and voice as a filmmaker. These projects required her to maximize visual impact quickly, so she emphasized “in-camera” visual effects rather than relying on blue screen. She brought her style of fast paced, high intensity visuals to a pitch with Marvel’s Loki series director Kate Herron, and got the job. She was subsequently nominated for an Emmy for the show’s episode Lamentis.

Loki proved to the powers that be in Hollywood she could handle complex, ambitious high budget projects, and it placed her at the top of Marvel’s crew A-list. When Ryan Coogler’s cinematographer on Black Panther, Rachel Morrison, was unavailable for the sequel, she recommended Durald Arkapaw, whom she called a trusted colleague, for the job.

COOGLER COLLABORATIONS

So often in Hollywood, male directors hire only men as heads of department. If they get any blowback, they argue there aren’t talented, experienced women for the job. Research and visual evidence suggests the opposite is true. Director and auteur Ryan Coogler has succeeded in part through his work with female crew heads. He knows talent when he sees it, is a fiercely loyal collaborator, as well as a champion of women below the line. Durald Arkapaw is part of a team that includes production designer Hanna Beachler, who won an Oscar for her work on 2018’s Black Panther, and costume designer Ruth E. Carter, who has deservedly walked away with two Oscars through her projects with Coogler, 2019’s Black Panther, and 2023’s Black Panther Wakanda Forever. With Sinners, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Hanna Beachler, and Ruth E. Carter are all Oscar-nominated and top contenders for wins, making it a historic first for women and women of color in film. This confirms that it’s not lack of talent, but the lack of opportunity that keeps women from ascending to the top of Hollywood’s production crew A-list.

When Coogler and Durald Arkapaw met, there was an instant rapport. The fascination with character-driven and emotionally evocative filmmaking that had guided her through her career was a perfect fit for Wakanda Forever, where a balance of epic cinematic sequences and intimate, emotional moments of grief was required. On the film, she utilized specific cameras and anamorphic optics to create consistent imagery across different environments. She is also credited with moving Marvel away from its crisp, bright look towards a more textured aesthetic. Wakanda Forever went on to become one of the highest grossing films of the 2022.

That shared visual language and ease of collaboration directly led to their work together on Sinners, which required the visuals walk that razor’s edge between epic cinematic action, and soulful emotional scenes between actors.

Durald Arkapaw’s Oscar-worthy cinematography in Sinners is based in the historic, first-time use of 65mm IMAX and Ultra Panavision 70 film. With the IMAX and Ultra Panavision, she mixed extreme, immersive wide shots, and tall, intimate IMAX frames, creating a unique, high-resolution viewing experience. The Ultra Panavision 70 was used to articulate the isolation and expansiveness of the Mississippi landscape, while IMAX was leveraged for intimate, intense moments. It is the first time these two formats were combined in a single film.

She also created a distinct visual contrast in Sinners by underexposing the film to make skin tones appear radiant and dimensional, while leveraging a palette of deep saturated reds, blues, and whites to define the narrative and characters. Instead of showing faces in artificial heavy light, she allowed shadows to highlight the diverse skin tones onscreen.

Given all the firsts and the visual splendor of Sinners, it’s hard to imagine anyone else standing at the Oscar podium holding the covered statue come March 15th.

WHAT’S NEXT

If you’ve been paying attention, you might have seen the announcement that the cast for the Ryan Coogler-developed reboot of the X-Files will be led by Danielle Deadwyler. The Hulu series will begin shooting in Vancouver in April, with the pilot directed by Coogler and lensed by Durald Arkapaw. Given that impressive lineup of talent above and below the line, it’s likely to be another win for this collaborative duo.

WHY WE CHOSE HER

First after first, award after award, Autumn Durald Arkapaw has shown she is artistically up to the task for any genre or project. Her career offers great inspiration for women, especially women of color, who feel passionately about cinematography, or really any below the line career. In an interview with Variety, she said, “It means the world when young girls, or film students of similar heritage, come up to me and express their gratitude, not just for the work, but for the fact that they can see someone like themselves behind the camera”.

If we were only to look at that gorgeous juke joint sequence in Sinners, a scene that will likely be studied into the far future of film history, that would be enough reason to celebrate Autumn Durald Arkapaw. The trajectory of her career speaks to the importance of giving talented women below the line a chance to shine. Her films with Ryan Coogler also reaffirm that movies centering people of color can be both artistic and financially viable. Can any artist ask for more? — Leslie Combemale