Who Is Autumn Durald Arkapaw? Meet the Oscar-Nominated Filipina Cinematographer
She makes history as the first woman of color to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography!
by Em Enriquez
Published on Jan 23, 2026
Her-story was just made in Hollywood! For her work on Ryan Coogler's Sinners, Autumn Durald Arkapaw becomes the first woman of color to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and the fourth woman overall.
Autumn has been active in the industry for close to 20 years now, and her recent recognition only speaks to her persistence as a creative. Her lineage traces back to the Philippines by way of her mother, so just the nomination is enough to ignite one's Pinoy pride. Get to know her more through the facts listed ahead.
Autumn was born on December 14, 1979 to a Filipino mother and an African-American Creole father. Originally from Oxnard, California, she was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. At present, she's married to Australian filmmaker Adam Arkapaw, with whom she has a daughter with.
Autumn earned a degree in art history from Loyola Marymount University before graduating from the cinematography program of the AFI Conservatory. In 2022, she officially became a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).
Prior to Sinners, Autumn has worked on films such as Palo Alto (2013), The Sun Is Also a Star (2019), and Mainstream (2020). Aside from the big screen, she's also been tapped for music videos of big-time artists such as HAIM, Solange Knowles, Big Sean, SZA, and bad girl Riri herself—the latter having her in the director's seat as well.
Sinners was the second collaboration between Autumn and fellow Oscar nominee Ryan Coogler. The director first worked with her for the 2022 Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In an interview, she discussed the unique challenge of shooting a movie for a huge franchise.
"You can work a lot of elements in order to give it that filmic curve, you can add texture with lenses, and light things a certain way, and make all these choices to look more like film," she said. "Each medium asks you to operate in different way, and the set has to operate in a different way."
With her breakthrough work on Sinners, Autumn also cements her name as the first female director of photography to shoot using a large IMAX platform. She shot the movie using 65 mm film with a combination of IMAX 15-perf and Ultra Panavision 70 camera—in lay man's terms, she was the first woman to make use of real IMAX film that produced images of the highest quality.
Being part of Sinners meant a lot for Autumn given her heritage and personal ties to the story. "I had a really strong connection with the subject matter because my father was born in New Orleans. He’s Creole, and I visited my grandparents there when I was younger. I already had that visual in my head of what I remember the south being like as a kid, and then to imagine the old south how Ryan envisioned it," she was quoted.
A big congratulations, Autumn!
The Academy Awards will be happening on March 15 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.
Em is queer and probably daydreaming somewhere. They're Preview's associate entertainment editor who's often spotted in cowboy boots and lemon-tinted sunnies.