Autumn Durald Arkapaw – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

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

March 1, 2026March 2, 2026 Leslie Combemale afi, American Society of Cinematographers, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, black panther, cinematography, gia coppola, Kate Herron, Loki, ryan coogler, Sinners, wakanda forever

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”.

Reviews

SINNERS – Review by Sherin Nicole

December 18, 2025December 21, 2025 Sherin Nicole Autumn Durald Arkapaw, hailee steinfeld, hannah beachler, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, MICHAEL B JORDAN, Miles Caton, Ruth E. Carter, ryan coogler, Sinners, Wunmi Mosaku

Sinners is alive. Both in the moment and immortal. It’s a story about stories, a cinematic conjuring where folklore, music, and family become the marrow of survival. Ryan Coogler has crafted a bold reclamation but also an expansion of the American narrative on film, where vampires are less monsters than metaphors for the forces that have haunted and fractured our communities for generations. Here, the juke joint isn’t just a set piece. It’s a crossroads where Black-American, Chinese-American, Choctaw, and Old Irish traditions intersect in harmony and discord—each of our musical traditions entwined in the story’s DNA. Coogler trusts us to reconcile the mixing of genres, allowing the weight of history and centuries of rage to roil beneath the surface of Mississippi culture and lore. Never spelling out what anything means but trusting us to find the poetry in what we see and how it makes us feel.

Reviews

THE LAST SHOWGIRL – Review by Diane Carson

January 7, 2025January 10, 2025 Diane Carson Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Billie Lourd, Brenda Song, gia coppola, jamie lee curtis, Kiernan Shipka, las vegas, motw, Pamela Anderson, the Last Showgirl

The Last Showgirl follows the fading fortunes of a Las Vegas star, Those who still associate Pamela Anderson with Baywatch, and discount her talent, have a surprise treat in store with director Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl. In it, she plays the aging rhinestone-and-feathers dancer Kelly, a Las Vegas star with her thirty-year career about to end when the hotel/casino unexpectedly decides to cancel her show, Le Razzle Dazzle. Kelly’s already struggling emotionally with her teenage daughter Shelly’s reappearance, ageism, and women’s exploitation. As Shelly, Billie Lourd incorporated memories from her grandmother Debbie Reynold’s Las Vegas shows and her mother Carrie Fisher’s experiences.

Movie of the Week

MOVIE OF THE WEEK December 13, 2024: THE LAST SHOWGIRL

December 8, 2024 Jennifer Merin Autumn Durald Arkapaw, betsy bozdech, Billie Lourd, Brenda Song, Dave Bautista, gia coppola, jamie lee curtis, jennifer merin, Kiernan Shipka, las vegas, leslie combemale, liz whittemore, loren king, motw, Movie of the Week, nell minow, Pam Grady, Pamela Anderson, sandie angulo chen, sherin nicole, the Last Showgirl

She’s been working pretty steadily since she first hung up her red swimsuit after Baywatch aired its last episode in the late 1990s, but with director Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, Pamela Anderson may have finally found the role that will put the image of her running down a beach in slow-mo to rest once and for all. She’s unforgettably vulnerable as Shelly, an aging Las Vegas dancer whose life is thrown into turmoil when her long-running burlesque show closes.

Reviews

THE LAST SHOWGIRL – Review by Loren King

December 2, 2024December 16, 2024 Loren King Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Billie Lourd, Brenda Song, gia coppola, jamie lee curtis, Kiernan Shipka, las vegas, motw, Pamela Anderson, the Last Showgirl

Who would have thought that one of the most revelatory and moving movies about entertainment, women and aging would come courtesy of Pamela Anderson and director Gia Coppola? The Last Showgirl combines grit and glitz as it pulls back the curtain on a fading Las Vegas act called “Le Razzle Dazzle,” a “Follies”-like extravaganza (based on the Jubilee, the last show of its kind in Vegas that closed in 2016 after 35 years) featuring scantily clad chorus girls in giant headdresses. Coppola turns The Last Showgirl into an elegy for entertainment past and for women who paid their dues and refuse to go gently.

Festivals Reviews

THE LAST SHOWGIRL (TIFF 2024) – Review by Rachel West

September 16, 2024September 17, 2024 Rachel West Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Billie Lourd, Brenda Song, Dave Bautista, gia coppola, jamie lee curtis, Kate Gersten, Kiernan Shipka, las vegas, the Last Showgirl, TIFF 2024

Gia Coppola give Pamela Anderson the best role she’s ever had in The Last Showgirl. Like Shelley, Anderson hasn’t been taken seriously as an actress or in her personal life, and here, she gets to prove decades of her critics wrong. It is a heartbreaking story to watch but Shelley remains optimistic throughout, even in the face of despair. She retains an idealized and romanticised vision associated with old Vegas that cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw captures so brilliantly.