Through Her Lens: 2013 (The 86th Oscars)
Monday, July 4, 2022 at 5:00PM A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Introduction / Explanation
Steve McQueen became the first Black director to helm a Best Picture winner for 12 Years a Slave (2013), telling the harrowing story of African-American freeman Solomon Northup who was kidnapped in 1841 and was sold to slavery. McQueen also became the first Black producer to receive a Best Picture award. Meanwhile, the film’s biggest competition was Gravity, a science fiction-thriller film set in space. Winning seven Oscars, the film was directed by Alfonso Cuarón, becoming the first Latin American to win the Best Director Oscar.
While having these two films as frontrunners is a win for representation at the Oscars, female directors were still left out of the conversation for majority of the awards season. Out of the 289 films included in the Reminder List of Eligible Films in 2013 (86th Academy Awards), only 32* (11.1%) were directed/co-directed by women...