Autumn Durald Arkapaw: The Filipino American visionary making Oscar history

Autumn Durald Arkapaw, right, might be making history at the Oscar awards.

When the lights go up for the 98th Academy Awards today, all eyes in the Asian American community will be on Autumn Durald Arkapaw. 

The cinematographer for Ryan Coogler’s Southern Gothic epic Sinners isn’t just capturing ghosts on screen — she’s busting through some of Hollywood’s thickest glass ceilings.

As a mixed-heritage Filipino American (her mother is Pinay and her father is African American/Creole), Durald Arkapaw just became the first woman of color — and the first Filipino American — to snag an Oscar nod for Best Cinematography.

Groundbreaking tech, personal roots

On Sinners, she went big—literally. She’s the first woman to serve as DP on a feature shot entirely on IMAX 65mm. But for Autumn, the Mississippi setting wasn't just a backdrop; it was a homecoming. With her father’s family hailing from New Orleans and Mississippi, she’s spoken about the deep emotional resonance of filming in the South. She even managed to get her paternal aunt into the film as an extra, rooting the high-concept supernatural thriller in real family history.

Autumn is known for being "craft-first," but she doesn't shy away from the weight of her identity. In various interviews throughout this awards season, she’s touched on what it means to be "the first."

She often stresses that while being a "female cinematographer" or a "minority DP" are labels the industry focuses on, her goal is to make the work so undeniable that those labels become secondary to her talent.

She has expressed a quiet pride in showing younger Filipino American and Black filmmakers that the "technical" side of the house—the world of heavy cameras and complex lighting — is a place where they belong.

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, she keeps her private life low-key. Howeveer, she carries that classic FilAm drive. Whether it’s the moody, neon-soaked halls of Loki or the vast, haunting landscapes of Sinners, her "eye" is a blend of her art history background and a heritage that spans two cultures known for their resilience and storytelling.

Future collaboration

Following the success of Sinners, Durald Arkapaw is set to reunite with Ryan Coogler once again for a reboot of The X-Files at Hulu, starring Danielle Deadwyler. She is scheduled to lens the pilot episode, which begins shooting in Vancouver in April 2026. And the pair are discussing working on Black Panther 3.

From the Bay Area to the AFI Conservatory to the Dolby Theatre, Autumn Durald Arkapaw is proving that our stories look better when we’re the ones controlling what and how we see.

More than 10 years ago, Arkapaw made "Variety’s 10 Cinematographers to Watch" list. Today the cameras will be on her.

In an interview with "Variety‘s" Awards Circuit Podcast, she says, “You dream about those things. It’s a dream come true,”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

'Sinners' ode to Chinese Americans' unheralded role in the deep South

Li Jun Li as Grace Cho had a pivotal role in 'Sinners.'

When we talk about American history, we usually get it in black and white ... well, mostly white. But Ryan Coogler’s motion picture Sinners is opening a conversation about the "cracks" in that history — specifically the Mississippi Delta Chinese, a community that lived in a tense, racial "in-between" for over a century.

As we head into the 2026 awards season, Sinners isn't just a win for representation; it’s a history-maker. The film has emerged as a major Oscar frontrunner following its record-breaking 16 Academy Award nominations and significant wins at key precursor ceremonies.

The film recently dominated the 2026 Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards) and the NAACP Image Awards, significantly shifting the momentum in its favor.

The film has shattered the all-time record for the most Oscar nominations for a single film with 16 nods, surpassing classics like Titanic and La La Land. For a "Black" movie — directed by a Black filmmaker with a predominantly Black cast with key roles by Asian Americans — to dominate the Academy in this way is a sea change for the industry.

History they didn't teach you: The "Middle Men"

The story of Grace and Bo Chow in Sinners is pulled from a rarely-discussed chapter of the post-Civil War South. After Reconstruction, Southern planters recruited Chinese laborers as a potential replacement for freed Black workers on cotton plantations.

When plantation life proved exploitative, these immigrants found a unique economic niche: grocery stores. Chinese grocers often lived in Black neighborhoods and served Black residents whom white merchants refused to serve.

WARNER BROTHERS

Hailee Steinfeld, who is part Filipino/Black costars in 'Sinners.'

In the film, the Chows operate two stores across from each other—one for Black patrons and one for white. This reflects the real-world segregation where Chinese families were "neither white enough to belong nor Black enough to be fully excluded".

FYI: The 98th Academy Awards will air live on ABC and stream on Hulu on Sunday, March 15 at 7 p.m. EDT (4 p.m. PDT).

Systemic Limbo: While they were often "middlemen" in trade, they faced their own fierce discrimination. They were excluded from white social organizations and even forced to attend separate schools or Black schools after the 1927 Supreme Court case Gong Lum v. Rice ruled that excluding Chinese children from white spaces was legal.

By including the Chows, Coogler didn't just add "diversity"; he showed the historical bonds between marginalized groups. In the film, Grace and the Moore family are described as "family, basically," illustrating the multiracial community building that happened in the heart of Jim Crow.

View from the edge: Breaking barriers 

The significance of Sinners earning 16 nominations cannot be overstated. It is the most-nominated film ever by a Black director and the first to sweep 14 wins at the Black Reel Awards.

Ryan Coogler achieved a rare "trifecta," earning personal nominations for Best Picture (as producer), Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.

It remains to be seen if the record-breaking haul signals more than just a trend that Hollywood is finally making room for Black-led films that are culturally specific and formally ambitious, rather than just focusing on "suffering." 

By including the Chow family, Coogler didn't just add "diversity;" he showed the historical bonds between marginalized groups. In the film, Grace and the Moore family are described as "family, basically," illustrating the multiracial community building that happened in the heart of Jim Crow.

With no AAPI-centric or themed film among the Oscar nominees, we’re rooting for Sinners not just because it’s a powerhouse film, but because it finally centers the complex, layered history of everyone who lived through — and resisted — the American racial hierarchy.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

Do Oscar wins by 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' equate to recognition of AANHPI?

SCREEN CAPTURE / ABC

Co-directors and writing team Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan give thanks to the Academy.

When the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once won the Screen Actors Guild Best Ensemble award earlier this month, 94-year old James Wong, veteran of over 600 movies and TV shows, reminded the audience about how White actors used to go Yellowface to portray Asian characters. He reveled at the acting award, "Look at us now!"

After winning seven Oscars last night, including the big prize for Best Picture and two of the four acting awards, you could not blame the AANHPI communities repeat Hong's exclamation, "Look at us, now!"

"This is for my dad, who like so many immigrant parents, died young. He is so proud of me, not because of this, but because we made this movie with what he taught me to do... and no one is more important than anyone else." said co-producer Jonathan Wang upon receiving his statuette for Best Picture.

History was made when Michelle Yao was named Best Actress, the first Asian* to win this award.  

(*When Indian American Merle Oberon won Best Actress in 1936 for The Dark Angel, she was "passing.") 

"For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities," the Malaysia-born Yeoh said as she held up her Oscar. "Dream big and dreams do come true."

The 60-year old actress who has been acting for 40 years also gave a shout-out to women, saying, "And ladies, don't let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up."

Ke Huy Quan won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, only the second actor of Asian descent to win this award. Haing Ngor won for The Killing Fields in 1984.

In his emotional acceptance speech, Quan said, "My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refuge camp. And somehow, I ended up here on Hollywood's biggest stage."

"They say stories like this only happen the movies. I cannot believe it's happening to me. This -- this is the American dream," he added.

In addition to Best Picture, EEAAO won best director, best original screenplay and best supporting actress Jamie Lee Curtis for her role as the IRS agent and Editing.

“There is greatness in every single person,” Daniel Kwan said as he accepted best director with co-director Daniel Schenert,. “It doesn’t matter who we are. There is genius in every single person, you just have to find it. Thank you to the people who unlocked my genius.”

Kwan becomes the third winner of Asian descent to win a directing Oscar. Chloe Zhao (Nomadland, 2021) and Bong Joon (Parasite, 2020) have also won the coveted statuette, the highest recognition in the movie industry.

The acting Oscars won by Yeoh and Quan marks the most given to Asian actors in a single year. 

In addition, Stephanie Hsu, the daughter in EEAAO and Hong Chau (The Whale) were also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category making the most acting nominations ever in the same year.

Asian Americans believe this year's Academy Awards and EEAAO popular success was a watershed moment in representation and recognition of the AANHPI communities because Everything Everywhere All at Once is decidedly an Asian American film about an Asian American family. 

Following the critical success of 2018's Crazy Rich Asians  which opened the door for Asian American and Asian movies like Minari and The Farewell and the award-winning Parasite, have helped paved the way for general acceptance despite the surge of anti-Asian incidents that continue to occur.

In a way, Academy recognition could be interpreted as another step towards the recognition of all AANHPI people who are too often perceived as perpetual foreigners, no matter how long they have lived in the US.

Other Oscar winners with Asian themes this year include: RRR, an Indian production, which won for Best Song, "Naatu Naatu;" and The Elephant Whisperers for Best Short Documentary, which is about a Tamil couple raising an elephant in India

EDITOR'S NOTE: Updated, March 13, 12 pm. For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Asians make history at the Academy Awards

Oscar winners, from left: director Chloe Zhao, musician H.E.R. and actress Youn Yuh-jung.

There has never been an Academy Awards like this year's Oscars show. In the midst of pandemic-induced social distancing and mask-wearing, Asians made their presence felt like never before in the history of the coveted statuettes.

An unprecedented number of Asians and Asian Americans were among the nominees and they walked away with awards for directing, best picture, best supporting actor and best song.

Chloe Zhao of China was named best director for helming the drama Nomadland, which also won awards for best picture and best actress (Frances McDormand). In her victory, Zhao made history as the first woman of color -- and only the second woman, ever -- to win the director's Oscar.

“I have always found goodness in the people I met everywhere I went in the world,” she said as she accepted her statuette. “So this is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves. And to hold on to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult it is to do that. And this is for you, you inspire me to keep going.”

Zhao's was a frontrunner for the award had been building since awards season began. She and Nomadland won a plethora of awards in the film festival circuit including the director's award in the Golden Globes, Critics' Choice and the Director's Guild.

For the first time in Oscar history, there were two directors of Asian descent being considered for the director's Oscar. Isaac Lee Chung was nominated for Minari, a movie about a Korean immigrant family adapting to life in rural Arkansas. 

Like Chao, Youn Yuh-jung, who played the feisty grandmother in Manari, made Oscar history as the first Korean and the second Asian American to win the Best Supporting Actress statuette. Miyoshi Umeki won the award for Sayonara in 1958.

Minari's lead actor Steven Yeun was also nominated for Best Actor. Like the director's category, it was the first time there were two Asians up for Best Actor. Riz Ahmed was also named for the same category for his work in the Sound of Metal. The award was won by  veteran actor Anthony Hopkins for his role in The Father. 

TWITTER

Filipino American musician and singer H.E.R. didn't expect to win the Oscar.

The song for Judas and the Black Messiah, "Fight For You" cowritten and performed by H.E.R., aka Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, won in the category of Best Song. "I didn't expect to win this award," said H.E.R.

"Musicians, filmmakers, I believe we have an opportunity and a responsibility, to tell the truth, and to write history the way that it was, and how it connects us to today, and what we see going on in the world today. I have no words, I'm so, so thankful," said the 23-year old Filipino American in her acceptance speech. Judas and the Black Messiah is about the betrayal and assassination of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Black Panther Party.

"Knowledge is power, music is power, and as long as I'm standing, I'm always gonna fight for us," she said. "I'm always gonna fight for my people and fight for what's right, and I think that's what music does, and that's what storytelling does."

 

Academy Awards: Asian American watchdog urges Hollywood to vote against Quentin Tarantino movie

Brad Pitt, left, and Mike Moh (playing Bruce Lee) in the Quentin Tarantino movie.

Ten days prior to the Academy Awards, Media Action Network for Asian Americans issued the following statement on Jan. 29 objecting to Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar nominations for Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood because of his depiction of the late Bruce Lee, and alleging that the director has a history of negative portrayals of people of color.

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Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood garnered 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, but MANAA is concerned about the Best Original Screenplay nod, as the nonprofit watchdog organization believes it’s undeserved given the insulting and inaccurate depiction of Asian American icon Bruce Lee (Mike Moh).

In the film, stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) laughs when Lee tells those gathered on a set that in a fight with the future Muhammad Ali, “I would make him a cripple!” Lee gets angry, asking Booth what’s so funny.

He responds: “You’re a little man with a big mouth and a big chip. And I think you should be embarrassed to suggest you’d be anything more than a stain on the seat of Cassius Clay’s trunks.”

Lee angrily retorts: “Brother, you’re the one with the big mouth. And I would really enjoy closing it, especially in front of all my friends. But my hands are registered as lethal weapons. That means, we get into a fight, I accidentally kill you, I go to jail!”

Lee suggests “a friendly contest … two out of three.” Although he defeats Booth in Round One, on their second match-up, Booth throws Lee into a vintage Lincoln Continental, damaging it.

Audiences laughed, as Lee was set up as a conceited jerk who deserved to be taken down a peg or two. The third round is interrupted before a winner can be determined.

After Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, expressed outrage, Tarantino said at a press conference: “Bruce Lee was kind of an arrogant guy. The way he was talking, I didn’t just make a lot of that up. I heard him say things like that, to that effect. If people are saying, ‘Well, he never said he could beat up Muhammad Ali,’ well, yeah, he did! Not only did he say that, but his wife, Linda Lee, said that in her first biography I ever read. … She absolutely said that!”

But on Twitter, Matthew Polly, author of the biography :Bruce Lee: A Life,” said the director was wrong. “Linda was quoting a TV critic [who]wrote: ‘Those who watched him would bet on Lee to render Cassius Clay senseless if they were put in a room and told that anything goes.’”

In the book “The Making of Enter the Dragon” (1987), Enter the Dragon co-star “Bolo” Yeung recalled Lee telling him that in the ’60s, while screening a documentary on Ali, “Bruce set up a wide full-length mirror to reflect Ali’s image from the screen. Bruce was looking into the mirror, moving along with Ali… Bruce was fighting in Ali’s shoes… Bruce knew he could never win a fight against Ali. ‘Look at my hand,’ he said. ‘That’s a little Chinese hand. He’d kill me.’”

Dan Inosanto, one of only three martial arts Lee trained to teach his Jeet June Do philosophy — and who co-starred with Lee in his final film, “Game of Death” — told Variety: “Bruce Lee would have never said anything derogatory about Muhammad Ali because he worshiped the ground Muhammad Ali walked on. In fact, he was into boxing more so than martial arts.”

Inosanto often accompanied Lee on TV and movie sets from “The Green Hornet” until his death and says Lee would never brag about his skills or get into fights to show off.

In his Aug. 16 Hollywood Reporter column, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (who fought Lee in “Game of Death”) wrote: “I was in public with Bruce several times when some random jerk would loudly challenge Bruce to a fight. He always politely declined and moved on. First rule of Bruce’s fight club was don’t fight — unless there is no other option. He felt no need to prove himself. He knew who he was and that the real fight wasn’t on the mat, it was on the screen in creating opportunities for Asians to be seen as more than grinning stereotypes.”

Lee himself once unambiguously stated, “Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”

Tarantino exploits the real-life reputation of Bruce Lee to establish Booth as a formidable force to be reckoned with. In doing so, he arguably becomes the most powerful and volatile force in the film.

Tarantino’s History of Demeaning People of Color

Since the “Kill Bill” (2003/2004) films, Tarantino hasn’t hid his superficial fixation with the East. Audiences watched as The Bride (Uma Thurman) sashayed across the screen in a replica of Bruce Lee’s “Game of Death” yellow and black-striped track suit wielding a Japanese katana and massacring a horde of faceless, nameless Asian men wearing Kato masks from “The Green Hornet.”

She challenged notorious yakuza boss O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) to a sword fight in the snow (a scene inspired by the 1973 Japanese film “Lady Snowblood”), slicing her head open. The Bride then miraculously mastered the art of kung-fu with laughable aplomb and in adequate time to assassinate her aging lover/betrayer (David Carradine).

The effect of these stylistic and narrative choices demonstrates an appreciation of Asian culture and aesthetics but not of Asian people and bodies.

Like many white directors, Tarantino culturally appropriates aspects of Asian culture (e.g. martial arts, samurai swords, philosophies, old movies) and uses them to defeat or kill the very people who crafted them in the first place, Asian men and women.

As far back as the 1993 film “True Romance” (which Tarantino wrote), there are blatant and demeaning references to people of color. In 1994’s “Pulp Fiction” (which Tarantino wrote and directed), Vincent Vega (John Travolta) shoots and kills a young black man and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson) tries to enlist his friend Jimmie — played by Tarantino — to help hide the body. Jimmie goes on a rant, pointing out that his home doesn’t have a sign that says, “Dead [N-word] Storage.”

Not long after, the audience witnesses the graphic anal rape of Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), with a ball-gag in his mouth, only to be rescued by a courageous Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), samurai sword in hand, of course.

Unforgettably, this same film featured a scene where Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) tells a child that he hid a gold watch in his anal cavity in order to prevent its confiscation by his Vietnamese captors, whom he describes as “gooks” and “slopes.”

In “Django Unchained” (2012), Tarantino set a record for the use of the N-word in a film (more than 110 times). After Spike Lee said he was boycotting the movie because of the overuse of the racial slur (“I use it, but not excessively… But Quentin is infatuated with that word. What does he want to be made — an honorary black man?”).

Tarantino, displaying his ignorance as to why he, as a white man, should be the one to determine if, when, and how often racial slurs should be used, told a reporter, “The minute any word has that much power, as far as I’m concerned, everyone on the planet should scream it. No word deserves that much power.”

Backlash Against Bruce Lee Portrayal

Although fact and fiction often blur in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, Bruce Lee is the only historic figure — besides the Manson family members — to be depicted negatively. Lee has been the inspiration of millions in large part because of his talents, but also due to the strength of his character and vision in trying to knock down barriers for Asian Americans in Hollywood. He was one of the few confident, leading Asian American men prior to his death in 1973.

While he wasn’t perfect, Lee’s remarkable legacy has stood the test of time for over half a century. Lee invented Jeet Kune Do, a philosophy of martial arts drawing from different disciplines that many credit with paving the way for modern mixed martial arts (MMA).

Unlike Lee, Tarantino sells future generations the empty promise that creative expression and malicious tropes go hand-in-hand. That the ruthless exploitation of one’s fellow man remains justifiable. Instead of attempting to defile the legacies of others, Tarantino should spend more time considering his own.

Shannon Lee decried Tarantino’s characterization of her late father as arrogant. As she told The L.A. Times, “I feel like he turned his confidence into arrogance and his intelligence into mockery.” The Wrap quoted her as saying, “I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad-ass who could beat up Bruce Lee. But they didn’t need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive. It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father.”

Lee told Variety that, despite Tarantino’s use of elements from her father’s past work, she doubts he’s really a fan of Lee’s. “I have always suspected that [Tarantino] is a fan of the kung-fu genre and a fan of things that kick ass in cool and stylish ways… But whether he really knows anything about Bruce Lee as a human being, whether he’s interested in who Bruce Lee was as a human being, whether he admires who Bruce Lee was as a human being, I’m not really sure that I have any evidence to support that that would be true.”

Reportedly, Shannon Lee appealed to China’s National Film Administration to have her father’s depiction in the film changed. Tarantino refused to make any changes, so it was banned in China.

Even more important than the question of whether Ali or Lee would’ve won in a fight, says MANAA Founding President Guy Aoki, “The question I’ve heard for decades is, ‘How different would the image of Asian men have been had Bruce Lee lived?’ Tarantino irresponsibly took the one iconic figure Asian Americans had, ridiculed him, and turned him into a joke.”

MANAA asks Academy members to take these concerns into consideration as they cast their ballot for both “Best Picture” and “Best Original Screenplay.”

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The Academy Awards airs on ABC, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2 p.m. EST, 5 p.m. PST.