School of the Arts Alumna Kathryn Bigelow Wins Major British Film Award
Feb. 22, 2010
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| Director Kathryn Bigelow on the set of The Hurt Locker
Image credit: Kathryn Bigelow and 42West
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With less than two weeks until the Oscars, Kathryn Bigelow (SOA’81) and her film The Hurt Locker continue their winning streak. Over the weekend, Bigelow became the first woman to win the best director award at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards. Bigelow and The Hurt Locker took home eight awards in total at the BAFTAs, including best picture, original screenplay (Mark Boal) and cinematography (Barry Ackroyd), among others.
After receiving the award for best director, Bigelow remarked on the importance of the achievement. “Women’s struggle for equity is a constant struggle,” she said to Reuters, “so if this can be a beacon of light, then wonderful.”
Bigelow’s BAFTA awards add to her already impressive achievements this film season. In January, she was awarded the Darryl F. Zanuck award for best feature for The Hurt Locker from the Producer’s Guild of America. In the same month, the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) awarded Bigelow its top prize, for “Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film.” Bigelow is the first female director to win the DGA award, which many film critics cite as a strong indicator for her chances to nab the best director Oscar.
Bigelow and The Hurt Locker have received nine Oscar nominations, including nods for best director, best picture, original screenplay and cinematography. Bigelow would be the first female director to win the best director award at the Academy Awards, which take place on March 7 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
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Multimedia
| Artworks by contemporary Cambodian artists, including survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide, are on display at Columbia’s Maison Française and Italian Academy. |
Milestones
Four Columbia faculty were awarded Sloan Research Fellowships by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. They are Mark Churchland, assistant professor of neuroscience; Wei Min, assistant professor of chemistry; Simha Sethumadhavan, associate professor of computer science; and Wei Zhang, assistant professor of mathematics.
Alondra Nelson, associate professor of sociology, won the 2012 book award from the Association for Humanist Sociology for Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination.
