Autumn Durald Arkapaw just made Oscar history, and honestly, it’s about time. The 46-year-old cinematographer from the East Bay became the first woman ever to win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography on Sunday night, taking home the statue for her groundbreaking work on Ryan Coogler’s film “Sinners”.

When accepting her award, Arkapaw made sure to lift up the women who helped get her there. “I really want all the women in the room to stand up because I feel like I don’t get here without you guys”, she told the audience while holding her Oscar. The moment was emotional and real, she talked about feeling so much love from women throughout the entire campaign process, recognizing that these wins don’t happen in isolation.

For context, this is a massive breakthrough for the film industry. Before Arkapaw’s win, only three women had ever been nominated for cinematography at the Oscars: Rachel Morrison (nominated in 2018 for “Mudbound”), Ari Wegner (for “The Power of the Dog”), and Mandy Walker (for “Elvis”). Arkapaw wasn’t just the first woman to win, she was also the first woman of color to be nominated. When she started her career, finding other women working in cinematography was nearly impossible, with Ellen Kuras being one of the rare examples.

“Sinners” itself is already historic for women in the field. Before this project, no woman had ever shot a movie using IMAX film, which is a massive technical and creative challenge. The cameras are huge, loud, and have a reputation for being restrictive. But Arkapaw didn’t let that stop her. She consulted with “Oppenheimer” cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who gave her some crucial advice: don’t worry about the equipment, just shoot the movie like you would with any other camera.

Taking that encouragement to heart, Arkapaw and Coogler ended up using a combination of IMAX film and Ultra Panavision 70, an incredibly rare format that Quentin Tarantino had resurrected for “The Hateful Eight”. One of her favorite scenes was actually dialogue-heavy, which should have been a no-go for IMAX because the cameras are so noisy. But Coogler wanted to push boundaries, so they filmed it anyway, and it turned out beautifully.

Arkapaw’s journey to this moment is inspiring. A Northern California native, she studied art history at Loyola Marymount University before pursuing cinematography at the American Film Institute, where she combined her photography background with filmmaking. Her credits include “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, “The Last Showgirl”, and even a Rihanna music video.

During her acceptance speech, she made sure to thank her husband and family, including her young son Aidan, who she called down to the stage during the moment. But her message was clear: representation matters. As she said, “you need to see you to be you”. With more women shooting on large format films, younger girls will know they can get there too.